Women’s rights and breastfeeding organisations are challenging government and NHS guidance that the groups say forces mothers to choose between feeding their infants in the way that they choose and protecting themselves from Covid by being vaccinated.
The NHS website advises lactating mothers to wait until they have stopped breastfeeding before having the Covid-19 vaccine. It adds: “There’s no evidence it’s unsafe if you’re pregnant or breastfeeding. But more evidence is needed before you can be offered the vaccine.”
The UK government website repeats the advice, saying it was “precautionary until additional evidence is available to support the use of this vaccine in pregnancy and breastfeeding”. There have been no trials of Covid vaccines on breastfeeding women.
The guidance could affect hundreds of thousands of women, including an estimated 20,000 frontline workers. About 46% of mothers in England were breastfeeding babies aged 6-8 weeks in 2018/19.
Dr Vicky Thomas of the Hospital Infant Feeding Network (HIFN) said she understood concerns but underlined the fact that there was “no evidence this vaccine would be harmful to breastfeeding mothers or their children and the risk seems to many to be minimal”.
She added: “Denying women the opportunity to be protected, or alternatively forcing them to lose the health impacts of breastfeeding for themselves and their children is yet another example of the way women have been disproportionately affected by Covid-19.”
Dr Hannah Barham Brown, the deputy leader of the Women’s Equality Party and a trainee GP, said: “The vaccine is our best defence against Covid. To insist without any evidence that certain women shouldn’t access it is completely irresponsible, especially as women make up the majority of essential workers in high-risk jobs.
“Unless the regulatory bodies reassess their position, women will face an unacceptable choice between giving up breastfeeding or putting themselves and those around them at risk. What breastfeeding mothers need is the right to make an informed choice.”
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In the US, the Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices has said breastfeeding is not a contraindication to receiving a Covid vaccination. The Food and Drug Administration has said lactating women should discuss the risks and benefits of being vaccinated with their healthcare provider.
In a letter to UK regulators and the manufacturers of Covid vaccines last week, HIFN, the GP Infant Feeding Network and Breastfeeding for Doctors said: “As groups representing frontline healthcare professionals who are lactating or have an interest in supporting lactation, we are extremely concerned at the impact of the ‘very precautionary approach’ that the MHRA [Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency] have taken.”
There was “minimal theoretical basis to suspect a risk to a breastfeeding child from mRNA Covid-19 vaccines”, and women should be able to make informed decisions, they added. “Instead, they face either being refused the vaccine, being forced to give up breastfeeding, or having to lie about their breastfeeding status.”
There had been an “outpouring of anxiety” from frontline workers who were breastfeeding, with many feeling they had been “put in an impossible and discriminatory position because of the UK regulator’s decision”.
Joeli Brearley, founder of Pregnant Then Screwed, said some breastfeeding women had already been refused the vaccination. “Women are being forced into the position of giving up breastfeeding, giving up their career or putting themselves in grave danger, all because they are not considered a priority by drug companies or the regulators.”
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