COVID-19 vaccines are now available worldwide. But the biggest challenge is the mixed reaction of the world's population to what has been touted as the best chance to bring life back to normal after a year of lockdowns and restrictions in movement.
A survey of pregnant women and mothers of young children across the globe recently found that a majority would be willing to get a safe and free COVID-19 vaccine, although acceptance was lower in the US, Russia, and Australia. In the US and Russia, less than 45percent of pregnant respondents and less than 56 percent non-pregnant respondents said they would get a COVID-19 vaccine themselves. The researchers suspected this trend could be related to prevalent COVID-19 denial in the two countries.
Australia and New Zealand also had relatively low vaccine acceptance rates, but the researchers thought that was more likely connected to dwindling COVID-19 case counts — the pandemic simply posed less of a threat to Australians when the survey was conducted there.
Vaccine acceptance was highest among pregnant women and mothers of young children in India, the Philippines, Brazil, and Mexico, according to survey results.
In general, those who felt reluctant to get a COVID-19 vaccine cited lack of confidence in the process, or fears that the vaccine development was rushed or politically motivated, as reasons for their hesitancy.
Pregnant people had additional concerns about how the vaccine might affect their developing fetus, the survey found.
Emily Adhikari, medical director of perinatal infectious diseases at Parkland Hospital in Texas, told Insider that physicians should listen to and validate these concerns while providing a clear message about vaccine safety. "Pregnant women face additional challenges in weighing the benefits of protection against COVID-19 for themselves with the fear and guilt associated with making a decision that they perceive could harm the fetus," Adhikari, who was not affiliated with the survey, wrote in an email to Insider.