The current wave of COVID-19 is on the decline in Mississippi, but state health leadership is urging residents—especially vulnerable populations like pregnant women—to get vaccinated, and to keep up with booster shots.

Dr. Rachael Morris, COVID obstetrics director at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, recalled how both the delta and omicron variants caused surges in pregnant patients over the course of the pandemic.

“The game changes constantly with COVID, and every time I think I know what's expected next, or what's coming, something different comes around and we have to respond,” Morris said in a Feb. 18 press briefing with the Mississippi State Medical Association.

Morris recalled how “devastating” the delta variant was for the healthcare system but noted that omicron introduced a no-less-severe set of challenges.

“Omicron has been a very different variant for us,” she said. “Not the severity of disease that we saw with delta, thank goodness—delta was devastating—(but) the sheer volume of patients that we have seen through just the university, the pregnant mothers with COVID, I have never seen this volume.”

To contextualize, Morris says she saw around 25 pregnant patients who contracted COVID per month during the early days of the pandemic, while just after Christmas 2021 she saw over 50 pregnant women who were ill in a single day.

“It's not the same as delta, but it is different and the volume makes it almost the same,” she said. “It has the same effect, whether it's five or 500.”

“COVID leads to preeclampsia; COVID is causing growth restriction, stillbirth, low fluid, there are a lot of ramifications and pregnancy related issues,” Morris said. “Aside from just the illness itself, the burden of pregnancy care and the risks ongoing are significant. We have one of the highest preterm birth rates in the country. We don't need any help with growth restriction and preterm birth or preeclampsia for that matter.”

Mississippi leads the nation in babies born before 37 weeks, with Black infants being born early 17.4% of the time, followed by white babies at 12.2%. These rates lead the global national average [LINK: https://ptb.srhr.org/ ], even when accounting for lower-income countries.

Morris and other leadership noted that studies show that vaccination is safe for mothers-to-be, they and urged people not to pay heed to misinformation.

“There's just still so much misinformation and lack of understanding amongst the patients that they think they're going to miscarry; they think they're going to cause a birth defect; or patients are teenagers (and) their mothers don't want them to get the vaccine because they're going to have infertility in the future,” she said.

“This is just all nonsense,” Morris said.

“None of that is based on any real valid data, and it doesn't do any of those things, but COVID actually does,” she adds. “COVID will cause a miscarriage COVID, will cause a stillbirth. If you don't survive COVID, you will not be childbearing.

“Fear the virus, not the vaccine,” she said.

Morris recalled one story where a pregnant mother did get vaccinated—that mother later thanked Morris for recommending the shot, relieved that she had passed the antibodies to her child, as is normal for vaccinations.

“My heart is happy for that one story of someone that realized the importance and the protection she has now provided for her child who can't get vaccinated yet,” Morris said.”

Email Reporting Fellow Julian Mills at [email protected].