Social media and COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy during pregnancy: a mixed methods analysis

To evaluate the reasons for COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy during pregnancy.

We used regular expressions to identify publicly available social media posts from pregnant people expressing at least one reason for their decision not to accept COVID-19 vaccine.

Two social media platforms - WhatToExpect and Twitter.

A total of 945 pregnant people in WhatToExpect (1017 posts) and 345 pregnant people in Twitter (435 tweets).

Two annotators manually coded posts according to the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) working group's 3Cs vaccine hesitancy model (confidence, complacency and convenience barriers). Within each 3Cs we created subthemes that emerged from the data.

Subthemes were derived according to the people's posting own words.

Safety concerns were most common and largely linked to the perceived speed at which the vaccine was created and the lack of data about its safety in pregnancy. This led to a preference to wait until after the baby was born or to take other precautions instead. Complacency surrounded a belief that they are young and healthy or already had COVID-19. Misinformation led to false safety and efficacy allegations, or even conspiracy theories, and fed into creating confidence and complacency barriers. Convenience barriers (such as availability) were uncommon.

The information in this study can be used to highlight the questions, fears and hesitations pregnant people have about the COVID-19 vaccine. Highlighting these hesitations can help public health campaigns and improve communication between healthcare professionals and patients.