Why pregnancy forums are rife with health misinformation - Salon

"We've always seen fear or distrust of not wanting to get a flu vaccine in pregnancy," Melissa Simon, an obstetrician gynecologist at Northwestern Medicine, told Salon.

As Simon alluded to, a 2018 study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases examined the influenza's vaccine effectiveness and flu-related hospitalizations in pregnant women between 2010 and 2016.

Denise Jamieson, professor and chair of the Department of Gynecology & Obstetrics ast Emory University School of Medicine, told Salon via email that there have often been long-standing myths and misconceptions about the flu vaccine that she's seen in her patients.

"More than two years into the pandemic, there's a surprising amount of confusion about the vaccine's safety for pregnant women," Mollyann Brodie, a Kaiser Family Foundation Executive Vice President, said in a statement at the time.

It's a question medical professionals have long been fixated on: why is health and vaccine misinformation so common in online pregnancy groups that are meant to provide support?

Previously, Simon told Salon the fact that a lot of the misinformation clouds pregnancy stems from "structural issues," such as "excluding pregnant and birthing and lactating persons" from research.