You’ve probably heard by now about the uproar in the scientific community after the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (ACIP) voted to stop recommending the birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine for newborns. (If not, heads up.) The vaccine has been recommended for decades to protect newborns from hepatitis B, and the removal of that recommendation—which didn’t involve any new science—is a big deal. Now, the ACIP recommends the vaccine only for infants born to women who test positive for the virus or whose hepatitis B status isn’t known.
If you’re expecting or trying to become pregnant, it’s understandable to have questions about what this means for you and your baby. It’s important to get this out of the way now: Every major American medical association (with the exception of the CDC) has spoken out against removing this hepatitis B vaccine recommendation. Many pediatricians and ob-gyns are furious at the change, too, with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) calling this a “dangerous move that will harm children.”
“This vaccine is a safety net. The ACIP removed that safety net,” Paul A. Offit, MD, director of the Vaccine Education Center and an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, tells SELF. “This is an important thing to do to protect your child. Unfortunately, this is anti-vaccine science.” Eric Ascher, DO, family medicine physician at Northwell’s Lenox Hill Hospital, agrees. “Our soon-to-be newborns deserve this layer of protection,” he tells SELF.
The AAP still recommends that newborn babies get the hepatitis B vaccine after birth. But it’s fair to be fuzzy on why the medical community is so upset about this—as well as what this means for your own child. Here’s what doctors want you to know.
First, let’s go over some hepatitis B basics.
Hepatitis B isn’t as common as, say, the flu, making it understandable to be unsure why this is a virus you should be concerned about. Hepatitis B is a viral infection that causes liver inflammation and damage, according to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).
Hepatitis B can cause an acute infection that only lasts for a few weeks or months, or a chronic infection that lingers. The odds of developing chronic hepatitis B is much greater if you were infected as a young child, per the NIDDK. (The agency notes that chronic infection develops in 90% of infected infants under the age of one.) Chronic hepatitis B can cause cirrhosis of the liver and even liver cancer. “There is no cure for hepatitis B,” Dr. Ascher says.
