The vaccines minister will seek advice from MPs who had children during the pandemic on how to encourage pregnant women to get the Covid jab.
There have been repeated calls for pregnant women to get vaccinated as more data has emerged showing the vaccine to be safe.
The Department of Health and Social Care last week cited statistics from the UK Obstetric Surveillance System which it said showed 96.3% of pregnant women admitted to hospital with Covid-19 symptoms between May and October were unvaccinated, a third of whom required respiratory support.
Vaccines minister Maggie Throup said she had visited a neonatal unit to speak to parents about their choices.
“We’ve seen far too many pregnant women who have ended up in intensive care because they haven’t been vaccinated,” she told the M.E.N during a visit to the Vaccination Centre at the Etihad Tennis Centre, on Monday (January 17).
“I did visit an antenatal unit to find out more about this and to hear the process that went through not just the mother’s head but the father’s head as well and it’s quite interesting,” she said.
Mrs Throup said she also plans to hold a roundtable discussion with MPs who had babies during the pandemic.
“There’s quite a lot of MPs, mums and dads, who have become parents throughout the pandemic,” she said.
“I’m going to pull together a roundtable for me to help understand more of those decisions and how parents make them and work with the professionals to get that message out.
“It’s been really clear that when pregnant women or those looking to get pregnant have a conversation with healthcare professionals they have a better understanding that it’s the best way to protect themselves and their baby to get vaccinated.”
In November last year experts warned that while uptake of the vaccine among pregnant women was improving, they were worried about some groups shunning the jabs, including younger women, those in the most deprived areas and women from black and minority ethnic communities.
The minister was in Manchester as part of a push to encourage more people to take up the offer of a booster as well as their first and second jabs.
The Etihad site opened in January 2021 and was one of the first Covid-19 vaccination centres in the country to begin vaccinating the public and health and care staff.
More than 414,000 people have been vaccinated at the site over the last 12 months.
But the city of Manchester has some of the lowest vaccination rates in the country with just 67% of people over 12 having had their first jab.
That figure drops to 59.7% for second doses and just 37.6% for booster doses.
Mrs Throup said: “It’s important that we reach out to people, those who may feel they don’t need the booster.
“We know that Covid is still very prevalent in communities and that’s why we’re looking at different ways - whether it’s for the first dose or the second or the booster - to reach out to communities to help them understand how important it is.
“People are eight times more likely to be hospitalised if they’re not boosted.”
A number of extra walk-in vaccination clinics are being held in Greater Manchester this week, with more than 100,000 slots available.
Walk-in sites can be viewed here www.nhs.uk/grab-a-jab , you can book appointments on the National Booking System here or call 119.
Details of local centres can be found at these links:
www.bury.gov.uk/coronavirus-vaccine
www.healthierwigan.nhs.uk/covid-19-vaccination
www.rochdale.gov.uk/covidvaccine
www.tameside.gov.uk/covidvaccine
