Although children have been mostly spared the misery that comes with Covid infections, the spread of Omicron has turned the tables and resulted in a record number of child illnesses and hospitalizations in the US.

Vaccine misinformation and promoted hesitancy are only exacerbating the risk for children. From concerns that the injections were created too rapidly to incorrect assertions that the jabs might affect future fertility, Phoenix Children's Hospital physician Wassim Ballan said battling disinformation has become part of his work.

Although the risk of fatalities remains low, the vaccines significantly lower the rate of serious disease or illnesses, and vaccinated mothers may pass on the protection. 

According to Ballan, "Unfortunately, a lot of times when we're having this time with a family to discuss these things is when the child is already in hospital."

In the US, just 27% of children aged five to eleven had gotten their first dose of the vaccination. This month, hospitalizations hit a high of 914 children per day, a significant increase from the previous top of 342 in September 2021.

The mother of all protection

In the first week of January 2022, Texas Children's Hospital in Houston reported 12 kids in intensive care with Covid-19. 

Babies are too young for the Covid-19 shot, but according to Kathryn Gray, an attending physician of maternal-fetal medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, research suggests that vaccination during pregnancy means antibodies are safely transferred to the baby, providing protection, although limited.

Expectant moms have also expressed reluctance to receive the vaccine after being excluded from earlier clinical studies.

Gray says she "has a lot of confidence" when telling patients the vaccine is safe for mother and child.

"If they truly want to protect their infants, getting vaccinated is the thing that will protect them the most at this time."

Global health organizations say the same thing, yet the initial absence of evidence is still being used in anti-vaccine rhetoric on social media. Posts on Facebook and Twitter stated that stillbirths increased as a result of the effort to vaccinate pregnant women, despite the fact that being unprotected against the infection poses a bigger danger.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Carla DeSisto and Sascha Ellington claimed data from 1.2 million US births indicated "no evidence the rate of stillbirths is higher overall during the pandemic."

The researchers did disclose however that being infected during pregnancy brings an increased risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes including preterm birth and stillbirth.

Breastfeeding has also been the focus of disinformation, with posters suggesting that breastfeeding from a vaccinated mother caused rashes or even death.

The Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine promotes immunization for nursing women and states that there is no need to discontinue breastfeeding after obtaining the vaccine.

Misinformation has become more widespread as parents interact to share and sell breast milk online. Bethany Bristow, a member of one of the largest such pages, expressed worry over demands for "unvaccinated milk".

The New York woman and her fellow moderators decided to prohibit such requests, and the rules for her group of over 10,500 parents now state: "Advertising or requesting vaccine-free milk puts you, your children, and community at risk."

According to Luara Ward, co-director of the Center for Breastfeeding Medicine at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, "Antibodies have been detected in the breast milk of vaccinated lactating women. This means that breastfed infants may have some protection against Covid-19 if their mothers receive the vaccine."

"Any concerns or unknown pieces about the vaccine are dwarfed by the risk of Covid."