ACOG Releases Updated Guidance on Maternal Immunizations

The American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists (ACOG) released updated guidance on maternal immunizations, underscoring the importance of vaccines in protecting pregnant women and their infants. The guidance was developed by ACOG’s Immunization, Infectious Disease, and Public Health Preparedness Expert Work Group and recommends that ob-gyns and other obstetric care professionals routinely assess their patients’ vaccination status, including their risk factors for vaccine-preventable diseases, and recommend needed vaccines to their patients.

“We developed this Committee Statement to provide clinicians with evidence-based information to facilitate accurate, informative, and transparent conversations with their patients about the benefits and limited potential risks of vaccines,” said Mark Turrentine, MD, FACOG, author of the guidance. “Vaccines have been proven to reduce hospitalizations and deaths, and we want to ensure that our pregnant patients are protected from vaccine-preventable diseases.”

The updated guidance discusses barriers to vaccines, including widespread misinformation and disinformation, limited knowledge and awareness about recommended vaccinations, and lack of trust in the medical system-especially among communities of color that have been subject to historical and ongoing systemic racism. It also affirms ACOG’s existing guidance and the evidence-based benefits of maternal immunization.

“Vaccine misinformation and disinformation is on the rise, and it’s unfortunately affecting people’s decisions about whether or not to get vaccinated and ultimately protect themselves and their pregnancies from preventable illness. The growing misinformation and disinformation and changing national recommendations are resulting in confusion for both patients and clinicians. It’s our duty at ACOG to ensure that ob-gyns and other clinicians who treat pregnant patients are equipped with evidence-based information to counsel their patients about which vaccines they need, and clinicians can find that essential information in this guidance,” said Christopher M. Zahn, MD, FACOG, chief of clinical practice at ACOG.

Key recommendations of the guidance include 

• People who are pregnant during the fall and winter respiratory illness season should receive annual influenza and COVID-19 vaccines. All eligible pregnant patients who meet criteria should receive the RSV vaccine.

• All pregnant people should receive a Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis) vaccine during each pregnancy, as early as possible in the 27–36 gestational-week window

• Ob-gyns may recommend other vaccines during pregnancy depending on the patient’s age, prior immunizations, comorbidities, and disease risk factors