Dear Dr. Ellis,
Thank you for the opportunity to submit a Reply Letter to the Letter you received regarding terminology used in our manuscript entitled “Maternal Immunization: Clinical Experiences, Challenges and Opportunities in Vaccine Acceptance”.
We thank the Letter's astute reader for this insightful comment. We agree that “maternal immunization” connotes a breadth of activities related to optimizing the immunization status of women of reproductive age who may be contemplating pregnancy, currently pregnant, or postpartum. We also agree that “maternal immunization” is often used in writings that focus primarily on vaccination during pregnancy, as in ACOG's Committee Opinion #608 on Influenza Vaccination During Pregnancy (http://acog.org/Resources-And-Publications/Committee-Opinions/Committee-on-Obstetric-Practice/Influenza-Vaccination-During-Pregnancy) and the CDC's Information for Providers regarding Tdap for Pregnant Women (http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/pertussis/tdap-pregnancy-hcp.htm). As with these publications, our manuscript hopes to frame vaccination as an integral component to preconception, prenatal and postpartum care, and this is our rational for using the broader terminology “maternal immunization” in our writing. This framing may, in fact, be important to normalizing vaccination for adult women and embracing an ethos of integrating vaccination practices into women's routine health care.
Respectfully yours,
Michelle H Moniz and Richard H Beigi