‘No place for anti-vaccination messages’, says Midwifery Council of New Zealand

on 01 September 2021

The Midwifery Council of New Zealand has released a statement about their latest guidance on COVID-19 vaccinations in pregnancy.

The council is expecting that all midwives will take up the opportunity to be vaccinated unless they are medically exempt from doing so.

In the statement it says: “It is an ethical and professional obligation to protect and promote the health of women and their whanau and vaccination has a crucial role to reduce the community risk of acquiring and further transmitting COVID-19.”

It also says that midwives have a duty to provide evidence-based information about the COVID-19 vaccines to pregnant and postpartum women: “these groups have a right to receive information that a reasonable consumer, in that consumer’s circumstances, would expect to receive. (Right 6, Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ rights.)”

“As regulator of Midwifery in Aotearoa New Zealand, the Midwifery Council respects an individual’s right have their own opinions, but it is the Council’s view that there is no place for anti-vaccination messages in professional health practice, nor any promotion of anti-vaccination claims including on social media and advertising by health practitioners.”

More information about COVID-19 vaccinations in New Zealand can be found here.

Click here to download MIDIRS free Literature Search Pack on COVID-19 vaccination in pregnancy for the latest evidence-based research.