COVID-19 Vaccination Status and Attitudes Towards Vaccination in Pregnant and Breastfeeding Mothers

Aim: The short- and long-term side effects of vaccines developed against COVID-19 and the uncertainty of their protective effects affect the attitudes of pregnant and breastfeeding women towards vaccination. This study aimed to investigate the COVID-19 vaccination status of pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, their attitudes towards the vaccine, and the factors influencing these attitudes.Materials and Methods: This descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted with 322 pregnant and breastfeeding mothers who applied to the obstetrics and gynecology outpatient clinic of a training and research hospital in Izmir between August 2022 and February 2023. Data were collected via face-to-face interviews using the Individual Identification Form and the Attitudes Towards COVID-19 Vaccine Scale. Descriptive statistics, Kruskal-Wallis, and Mann-Whitney U tests were used for data analysis.Results: It was determined that 75.2% of pregnant and breastfeeding mothers had received the COVID-19 vaccine. The mean score of the Positive Attitude subdimension of the Attitudes Towards COVID-19 Vaccine Scale was 2.85 ± 1.00, while the mean score of the Negative Attitude subdimension was 3.04 ± 0.71. There was a weak positive correlation between the mean age of women (r = 0.138; p = 0.013) and their spouses (r = 0.160; p = 0.004) and the Positive Attitude subdimension scores. A statistically significant difference was also found in the Positive Attitude subdimension scores according to the parity (KW = 10.676; p = 0.014), with women who had four or more pregnancies showing more positive attitudes.Conclusions: Pregnant and breastfeeding mothers were found to have a generally positive attitude towards COVID-19 vaccination. In vaccine studies that may emerge in future pandemics, policy makers, public authorities, and health professionals should work collaboratively for such special groups, and vaccination strategies, counseling, and educational interventions that take individual differences into account should be planned.