COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines Safe For Pregnant Women
04/22/2021
I have received a few questions about the safety of the coronavirus vaccines for pregnant and lactating women. I discussed toward the end of one blog post about how maternal immunity can benefit the baby by passing the mother’s antibodies across the placenta and given in mother’s milk, thereby protecting neonates whose immune systems are still developing.
Now, an analysis of the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, and the “v-safe after vaccination health checker," and its associated v-safe pregnancy registry, shows that the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines appear to be safe for mothers and babies. The analysis examined almost 36,000 pregnant women who received one of the mRNA vaccines, and was reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Compared to non-pregnant women, pregnant women who were vaccinated reported more injection-site pain, but fewer incidents of headaches, myalgia (muscle pain), chills, and fever. About 14% of vaccinated pregnant women suffered pregnancy loss while about 9% of neonates born to vaccinated women suffered adverse events, and 3% of them were undersized. No neonatal deaths were reported. The important thing is that the incidence of these outcomes was similar to the incidence observed in pregnant women before the pandemic arose. Most of the pregnant women who were evaluated were vaccinated in the third trimester.
The study concluded that the data revealed no obvious warning signals for pregnant women who receive the mRNA vaccines. But, it also advised that followup with women vaccinated earlier in pregnancy is warranted.
Stay tuned.
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