December 23, 2021
For generations of parents, Heidi Murkoff’s 1984 pregnancy guide “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” has been a trusty companion, offering calm, scientifically informed advice for a nerve-wracking nine months.
These days, of course, there’s an app for that: What to Expect’s “Pregnancy & Baby Tracker,”which offers personalized articles, videos, graphics of your baby’s development, and other features based on your due date.
But parents who’ve used What To Expect’s app say they also offered something they weren’t expecting: a “community” section rife with scare stories, conspiracy theories, and outright falsehoods about the safety of vaccines, posted by other users and surfaced by the app’s search functions and email notifications.
Mashaya Engel, 26, who gave birth to a daughter in August, said she encountered multiple posts expressing skepticism about the safety of getting vaccinated against the coronavirus during pregnancy. “I searched in the group discussions for vaccines, and it popped up — some moms having discussions about not vaccinating your children, or getting delayed vaccines,” Engel said. Other users noted a similar phenomenon: “Most antivax and microchip conspiracy comments I’ve ever seen,” one tweeted in May.
Read more at The Washington Post.