UK: Breastfeeding Women Without Vaccines?

 

British women’s rights organizations are outraged. The reason for their anger? Directives from the government and the NHS (the public health system in the United Kingdom) which do not intend, for the time being, to allow pregnant women and nursing mothers to be vaccinated against Covid-19. “There is no evidence that vaccination is risky if you are pregnant or breastfeeding. But more evidence is needed before we can offer you the vaccine, ”the NHS timidly develops on its website.

No clinical trial has in fact been carried out on breastfeeding women, specify our colleagues from the Guardian, Sunday December 20, 2020. Associations believe that this position forces women to make a difficult choice: that between breastfeeding their child and their own health. This contraindication could thus affect hundreds of thousands of women across the Channel, indicates the British newspaper, which recalls that around 46% of British mothers breastfed their infants in 2018 and 2019.

A “totally irresponsible” position

If Doctor Vicky Thomas, of the Hospital Infant Feeding Network (HIFN), understands the authorities’ concern, she points out that there is “no evidence that this vaccine is harmful to nursing mothers and that the risk appears to be minimal “. And the expert added: “Denying women the possibility of being protected or forcing them to stop breastfeeding is another example of how women have been disproportionately affected by Covid-19. ”

“The vaccine is our best defense against Covid-19. To argue without any proof that some women should not have access to it is totally irresponsible, ”says doctor Hannah Barham Brown, quoted by the British daily. A position which shocks associations all the more since the American authorities recently affirmed that breastfeeding was not a contraindication to vaccination against the new coronavirus.

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