Connor Kim is a smiling and healthy 8-month-old baby.
Before he was even born, Connor’s mother Stephanie Kim made the decision to protect him from respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. Last year, when she was 36 weeks pregnant, Stephanie Kim received the newly approved prenatal vaccination against RSV called Abrysvo.
“I got the shot because I wanted to protect Connor,” said Kim, MD, a Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara surgeon. “I had heard how devastating RSV can be for babies and I wanted to prevent it.”
RSV is a respiratory virus that usually causes mild, cold-like symptoms. But for some infants it can be extremely dangerous. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, each year RSV causes roughly 58,000 to 80,000 hospitalizations nationally and 100 to 300 deaths in children under the age of 5.
Last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Abrysvo for use during pregnancy. Kaiser Permanente Northern California vaccinated more than 7,000 pregnant patients last year and saw a decrease in hospitalizations.
“Aside from arm soreness, the vaccine is very safe,” said Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara Ob-Gyn Luwam Semere, MD, who helped lead the initiative to provide prenatal vaccinations throughout Kaiser Permanente Northern California.
This year, Kaiser Permanente Northern California began offering prenatal vaccines to pregnant patients in early September.
Already, more than 2,000 doses of Abrysvo have been given. Semere said she expects to exceed last year’s vaccination count by the time the RSV season ends in February.
Abrysvo is designed to protect the baby. The single-dose vaccine should be given between 32 weeks and 36 weeks of pregnancy from September to January to provide protection during the RSV season.
The RSV vaccine passes antibodies from pregnant people to their fetuses. This protects newborn babies from the virus, particularly during the first five to six months after birth, when their immune system is still developing.
Pregnant patients who don’t meet the criteria can still have their baby immunized as an infant with a RSV preventative antibody, nirsevimab. Babies are immunized with the shot that provides antibodies if they are younger than 8 months old and born either before or at the start of RSV season.
“Either way, we’re protecting our most vulnerable patients from a dangerous disease,” Semere said.
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