Most pregnant women believe or are unsure about COVID-19 vaccine misinformation: poll

Seven in ten women who are pregnant or planning to become pregnant believe or are unsure about false claims related to COVID-19 vaccines, a Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) poll found.

Pollsters presented three false statements to respondents: Pregnant women should not get the COVID-19 vaccine, it is unsafe for breastfeeding women to get a COVID-19 vaccine and the COVID-19 vaccines have been shown to cause infertility.

Twenty-nine percent of respondents in the demographic believed at least one of three false statements.

Beyond those who heard the misinformation and believed it to be true, larger shares of pregnant women or those planning to become pregnant were unsure about the statements.

Nearly 4 in 10 respondents in that group were unsure if pregnant women should not get the COVID-19 vaccines. Forty-four percent were unsure if the vaccines cause infertility.

For women younger than 50, the poll found a higher tendency to believe or be unsure of the misinformation among those who were unvaccinated and those who did not have a college degree.  

About half of women under the age of 50 said that they were confident vaccines were safe for pregnant people.

Roughly 3 in 10 pregnant women remain unvaccinated against COVID-19, a figure that lags adults overall, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The CDC recommends pregnant people get vaccinated for COVID-19 and stay up-to-date on booster shots. The agency also suggests vaccination during pregnancy might help protect babies against COVID-19, but the CDC cautions that more data is needed to assess the potential protection.

Seventy-two percent of all adults in the poll were at least somewhat confident in the safety of COVID-19 vaccines for adults, but that figure fell to 53 percent when asked about their confidence in safety for pregnant people.

The poll also found a split in vaccine confidence along party lines. Seventy percent of Democrats said they were very confident that the COVID-19 vaccines were safe for adults, compared to 23 percent of Republicans.

When asked about their confidence in safety for pregnant people, those figures fell to 40 percent and 10 percent, respectively.

The survey was conducted May 10-19, by an online representative sample of 1,537 U.S. adults including 615 women aged 18 to 49, conducted in English (1,442) and in Spanish (95).