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How do vaccines prevent birth defects?

I'm writing a piece on birth defect awareness month, and every resource tells women to get their vaccines in order to prevent birth defects. What's the correlation? How would an unvaccinated mother put her baby at risk for a birth defect? 
https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/infographics/prevent2protect/index.html
https://www.nbdpn.org/docs/2018_NBDPN_BDPM_Prevent2Protect_Theme_Resources_2017_11_14.pdf 

Posted - January 10, 2018
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Responses


  • 44583
    According to the website, infections can cause birth defects. More research is needed.
      January 10, 2018 8:41 AM MST
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  • 7939
    Right... it just seems like quite a stretch to me. I haven't seen actual scientific lit that shows a decrease in birth defects among vaccinated mothers. 
      January 10, 2018 8:50 AM MST
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  • 34172
    If the mother is unvaccinated and becomes exposed to a disease during pregancy, it can cause birth defects. I know rubella for example will cause deformation of the brain and/or heart in a unborn baby.
      January 10, 2018 8:49 AM MST
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  • 7939
    Ah! That is a good one. 
    However, the CDC is pushing Flu and Whooping Cough vaccines. You can't get the rubella vaccine while pregnant. You made a fair point, though, at least as far as pre-pregnancy vaccines goes. Thank you. 
      January 10, 2018 8:55 AM MST
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  • 34172
    I did not think those were to prevent birth defects but rather prevent the newborn from getting the illness from the Mother. I believe they push for the entire family to be vaccinated.  
      January 10, 2018 9:46 AM MST
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  • 7939
    Indeed. That's how they're usually presented. That's why I was surprised to see them mentioned in birth defect prevention information. I don't see how they apply. Both the CDC and NBDPN mention the whopping cough and flue vaccine as #1 on their birth defect prevention sheets, which I linked in the question. It would make sense to me if they talked about getting a rubella vaccine prior to getting pregnant, just like they talk about taking folic acid before becoming pregnant, but I don't understand why they mentioned it the way they did. Either I'm missing something or they're pushing vaccines on pregnant women with no actual science to back up the importance. That doesn't sit well with me. To be clear, I'm not saying people shouldn't have those vaccines, I'm questioning why they would use birth defects as a scare tactic to get pregnant women to get vaccines when there doesn't appear to be any research that the vaccines they mention reduce the incidence of birth defects. 
      January 10, 2018 10:37 AM MST
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  • 34172
    I don't see where the site is saying either whooping coug or the flu cause birth defects. The link you showed says vaccines are needed to prevent birth defects AND other health problems. The regular vaccines prevent (measles etc which we know causes birth defects) then to also get whooping cough and the flu because these cause "other health problems" on another page is says whooping cough can be deadly to an infant under age 1 and flu can lead to early labor and premature birth.

    https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pregnancy/pregnant-women/index.html


      January 10, 2018 5:36 PM MST
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  • 22891
    probably cause the diseases themselves can cause a birth defect
      January 10, 2018 10:55 AM MST
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  • 17582
    I believe that the diseases for which the vaccines target might be responsible for birth defects.  I don't think the vaccines themselves affect the rate of birth defects.  I am answering from a Thriftymaid common sense angle......I've never read about this.  I run from vaccines.
      January 10, 2018 5:07 PM MST
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