Babies Are Getting Measles In The Womb. That Wasn’t A Problem Before The Vaccine, Pediatricians Say
A blue state recently reported an alarming rise of infants born with measles and pushed vaccination — these cases may be the result of lost natural immunization after the introduction of the MMR vaccine, doctors say.
Libby Bandelin·Nov 11, 2026·5 min read
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A blue state recently reported an alarming rise of infants born with measles and pushed vaccination — these cases may be the result of lost natural immunization after the introduction of the MMR vaccine, doctors say.
The Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH) issued an alert about an increase in measles cases during pregnancy on Oct. 19, and confirmed that 66 mothers had come down with the disease and at least six babies were born with it in Pennsylvania throughout 2026, doctors told NBC. While the DOH said that day in a press release that getting the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine “is the best way to prevent measles and newborn measles,” some pediatricians and family practice doctors disagree, according to an article published Monday in the Defender, Children’s Health Defense‘s news source.
Doctors who spoke with the outlet said that congenital measles — when a baby is born with the disease passed down by his or her mother in utero — used to be a rare occurrence before the vaccine was introduced more than 50 years ago. They added that decades of research shows that vaccine-induced immunity is weaker than natural immunity to the measles disease.
“For the first time in a generation, American babies are being born infected with measles and the science told us this was coming,”
, a pediatrician told the Defender. “The vaccine program didn’t eliminate measles — it shifted the risk to the most vulnerable: newborns and the pregnant women carrying them.”
These physicians claim that women who had a natural measles infection as a child are better protected against giving birth to a baby with congenital measles than women who got the MMR vaccine, the Defender reported.
The MMR vaccine was first introduced to the United States’ markets in 1971 as a combined measles, mumps and rubella shot, however it did not get widely adopted until the 1980’s when the World Health Organization starting expanding vaccination initiatives, according to the WHO.
Before the MMR vaccine, measles was a “routine childhood illness,” where over 99 percent of children made it through the disease with “no problem, resulting in robust, permanent and life-long immunity,” family practitioner Dr. Ben Edwards told the Defender.
The Pennsylvania Department of Health was not able to provide comment to the DCNF before publication.
“Practically all pregnant mothers had measles in their youth,” Edwards said to the outlet. “It’s really a beautifully designed natural immunization process — but we’ve lost that because of the measles vaccine program.”
Edwards runs a private practice serving roughly 2,000 patients and treated over 300 cases of measles during the West Texas measles outbreak, the defender reported.
Edwards said that before the vaccine, mothers passed along protective antibodies to their babies in the womb, which protected the babies during the “more vulnerable first year of life.” Children would get measles sometime in the first decades of life and then develop their own robust, lifelong immunity, the doctor told the Defender.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) also acknowledges that congenital measles was exceedingly rare before the introduction of the MMR vaccine, the outlet reported.
“Historical studies suggest that congenital measles was uncommon in the prevaccine era, when most pregnant women were previously infected with measles during childhood,” the AAP said in a FAQ about congenital measles.
The AAP defines congenital measles as an infection acquired before birth in which a newborn tests positive for measles or develops symptoms within the first 10 days of life. There’s about a 25 percent to 30 percent chance a pregnant woman who contracts measles will transmit the virus to her unborn child, the AAP said.
Pennsylvania continues to boast high numbers of measles cases, with 1,487 confirmed reports and six measles or “measles-associated” deaths as of Nov. 6, the Defender reported. Two of these deaths were reportedly of infants, but it is unknown whether they had congenital infections, according to the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP).
Pennsylvania’s death count included a stillborn baby who tested positive for measles, suggesting a case of congenital measles, as Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro announced during an August press conference. However, the coroner, Dr. Stephen Diamantoni, told the Philadelphia Inquirer the child died of a ruptured spleen — not from measles.
Children’s Health Defense is a non-profit that was chaired by now Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from 2015 to 2023.
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