{"id":742234,"date":"2026-06-17T07:01:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T07:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/742234\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T07:01:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T07:01:09","slug":"leading-ob-gyn-group-breaks-from-cdc-on-maternal-vaccination-schedule-us-healthcare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/742234\/","title":{"rendered":"Leading OB-GYN group breaks from CDC on maternal vaccination schedule | US healthcare"},"content":{"rendered":"

The leading professional organization for obstetricians and gynecologists in the US has launched its first maternal vaccination schedule<\/a> and diverged for the first time from federal recommendations.<\/p>\n

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has long recommended giving the shots during pregnancy, but this is the first time it is releasing them as an official schedule.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration, under the leadership of Robert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and a longtime vaccine critic, dropped its recommendations for flu and Covid shots. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which offers recommendations to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), was planning to focus next on vaccines for pregnant people before the committee was halted by a judge\u2019s order.<\/p>\n

Tracy Beth H\u00f8eg, a sports medicine physician who oversaw an investigation into vaccines at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) until she was fired<\/a> in May, claimed<\/a> without rigorous data that the RSV vaccine was deadly for babies. The first study<\/a> using real-world data in the US, published last week in Jama Network Open, found that RSV vaccination during pregnancy is 68% effective against hospitalization in babies under the age of three months.<\/p>\n

The administration\u2019s recommendations are not based in science, Laura Riley, chair of obstetrics and gynecology at Weill Cornell Medicine and a member of ACOG, said in a press conference about the announcement: \u201cThe evidence, I think, does not support their recommendation. The evidence supports our recommendation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The recently announced new ACOG schedule recommends four shots for all pregnant people: influenza; Covid; tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis (Tdap); and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). For some people with comorbidities or who are at risk of contracting certain diseases, vaccines such as hepatitis B and measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) may also be recommended.<\/p>\n

The guidance is intended to be an accessible resource for providers, patients and pharmacists in an effort to \u201ccommunicate clear, evidence-based guidance and to address the growing vaccine misinformation that is circulating\u201d, said Christopher Zahn, chief of clinical practice and health equity and quality at ACOG.<\/p>\n

About 13 medical societies endorsed the schedule, including the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP).<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the same time that we are putting out this information, we have the HHS secretary saying that Covid vaccines are not necessary in children and in pregnant women. So, we needed to get rid of some of that confusion, as well,\u201d Riley said. She highlighted the \u201cvery clear data\u201d that Covid vaccines in pregnancy still help prevent serious outcomes<\/a>, like hospitalization and preterm birth.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs pediatricians, when we talk about protecting children, we often focus on what happens after they\u2019re born, but the protections really start well before that during pregnancy,\u201d said Andrew Racine, AAP president. \u201cBabies are among the most susceptible populations for vaccine-preventable diseases, and they depend upon the adults around them to keep them safe in those first few months of life before they\u2019ve had the opportunity to develop their own immunity,\u201d he said, and maternal vaccines were a \u201ckey element\u201d of protection.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe science is clear,\u201d said Margot Savoy, chief medical officer at AAFP. Vaccines in pregnancy provide \u201ccritical protection\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

Immunizations protect the pregnant person, the infant and the wider public, Zahn pointed out.<\/p>\n

About 70% of pregnant people get their Tdap and RSV shots in the US, but the rate has fallen to about 30% for flu and even less for Covid, said Kevin Ault, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Western Michigan University and member of ACOG. But there are disparities between people on public versus private insurance \u2013 both in vaccination rate and in outcomes for babies, he said. \u201cWe could do better overall.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obstetricians and gynecologists used to be in the rooms where federal recommendations were made; several members of ACOG, including Riley and Ault, were in ACIP working groups until those groups stopped meeting<\/a> under Kennedy.<\/p>\n

In early 2026, ACOG withdrew from the ACIP due to \u201cconcerns about recent changes that undermine the committee\u2019s scientific Integrity and evidence-based approach to vaccine policy\u201d, Zahn said. \u201cThe relationship we had with the CDC was so incredibly important for so many years. But \u2026 we\u2019ve got to shift to a different approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

ACOG\u2019s recommendations, previously released as toolkits on each vaccine, were \u201cin sync\u201d with the CDC until 2025, Riley said. But now, \u201cwe\u2019re going to have to do things differently now that the CDC is not exactly what we had hoped,\u201d she said. The recommendations were informed<\/a> by a comprehensive review of data from the Vaccines Integrity Project.<\/p>\n

Increasingly, patients say they are \u201cdoing their own research\u201d about vaccines \u2013 frequently on social media. \u201cSocial media is not going away,\u201d said Sarah Vaillancourt, a board member of the National Association of Nurse Practitioners in Women\u2019s Health (NPWH). \u201cSo how, as active working clinicians, do we help patients navigate that landscape to find evidence and information that\u2019s accurate?\u201d The schedule would help, she said, because it\u2019s accessible not just to providers but to patients as well.<\/p>\n

The vast majority of parents want to have their kids vaccinated, but hesitancy was significantly higher than it has been in the past, Racine said, and that was \u201ctaking a significant toll\u201d on pediatric practices. There\u2019s evidence<\/a> that delaying vaccination makes it more likely that children will never get the shots.<\/p>\n

Providers aren\u2019t just seeing an increase in vaccine hesitancy, Savoy said. Patients are increasingly skeptical of science in general. But often, patients just have questions and need to talk them through. Clinicians can \u201cshow up slightly differently in that conversation\u201d to answer those concerns, and that can help re-establish trust, she said.<\/p>\n

Doctors are the most trusted source of information on these topics \u2013 and OB-GYNs occupy a special place. \u201cWe do have a unique opportunity in pregnancy, because we see people 10 times in nine months,\u201d plus follow-up postpartum and lactation visits, Riley said. \u201cit does give you the opportunity to answer those questions over time\u201d and talk about vaccines \u2013 in pregnancy and for infants later down the road, she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The leading professional organization for obstetricians and gynecologists in the US has launched its first maternal vaccination schedule…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":742235,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":["post-742234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=742234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/742235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=742234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=742234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=742234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}