COVID-19 vaccination and pregnancy issues have been clouded by misinformation, leading women who are pregnant or trying to become pregnant to decline immunization. The accumulating evidence strongly suggests that vaccination safeguards pregnant women against severe infection and also confers protective immunity to the newborn baby.
Research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy was 61% protective to the newborn.1 “Babies less than six months old, whose mothers were vaccinated, were 61% less likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19,” Dana Meaney-Delman, MD, chief of the CDC’s Infant Outcomes Monitoring Research and Prevention Branch, said at a press briefing. “In fact, 84% [of infants] who were hospitalized with COVID-19 were born to people who were not vaccinated during pregnancy.”
The fears of infertility in women after COVID-19 immunization appear to have begun with reports in Germany alleging the vaccine may trigger the immune system to attack the placenta, said Katelyn Jetelina, PhD, MPH, an epidemiologist at the University of Texas Health Science Center.
A debunker of false and misleading pandemic information, Jetelina said misinformation often contains a kernel of truth that is distorted to raise fears.
“The placenta does have a receptor that’s very similar to the receptor of the [SARS-CoV-2] spike protein,” she said at a webinar hosted by the American Public Health Association.2 “They are of the same family, so they do work the same way. However, they aren’t similar enough. They don’t have enough amino acid sequences to cause confusion to the immune system. In other words, the immune system cannot and will not mistake the placenta for a virus. The problem is this context is lost, and people come to an inaccurate conclusion that vaccines cause infertility.”
Researchers studied data from 20 children’s hospitals in 17 states from July 2021 through mid-January 2022. The findings “emphasize the importance of COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy to protect people who are pregnant and also to protect their babies from being hospitalized,” Meaney-Delman said.
The CDC recommends those who are pregnant, breastfeeding, trying to get pregnant now or who may do so in the future take the vaccine and stay up to date with their COVID-19 vaccines through recommended booster doses.
REFERENCES
- Halasa NB, Olson SM, Staat MA, et al. Effectiveness of maternal vaccination with mRNA COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy against COVID-19-associated hospitalization in infants aged < 6 months — 17 states, July 2021-January 2022. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2022;71:264-270.
- American Public Health Association. Weathering the storm: All hands on deck response to the COVID-19 infodemic and how we can prepare for the future. Published Feb. 9, 2022. https://www.apha.org/Events-and-Meetings/APHA-Calendar/Webinar-Events/2022/Weathering-the-Storm
COVID-19 vaccination and pregnancy issues have been clouded by misinformation, leading women who are pregnant or trying to become pregnant to decline immunization. The accumulating evidence strongly suggests vaccination safeguards pregnant women against severe infection and also confers protective immunity to the newborn baby.
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