Should pregnant women get the COVID-19 vaccine? An Immunologist Weighs In.

Immunologist William Petri, Professor of Medicine at the University of Virginia recently published an article in The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing information from academic experts, answering this question, and others, regarding whether or not it is safe for pregnant women to get the Covid-19 vaccine. Here’s what he said:

“I am a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Virginia, where I care for patients with COVID-19 and conduct research on how best to prevent, diagnose and treat this new infection. As I interact with patients in the hospital, some mothers and expectant mothers have asked whether it is safe for them to take the vaccine…. Yes, you can and should get a COVID-19 vaccine if you are either pregnant or breastfeeding.”

An important reason is that COVID-19 is more severe during pregnancy. In a study of 23,000 pregnant women with symptomatic COVID-19, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported pregnant women were 3 and 2.9 times more likely to end up in the ICU or on mechanical ventilation, respectively. I find it reassuring, though, that the absolute risk remains low. Only about one out of 100 pregnant women with COVID-19 is admitted to an ICU.

Vaccines are, in general, safe and well tolerated during pregnancy. Additionally, neither the Pfizer nor Moderna COVID-19 vaccine contains the live SARS-CoV-2 virus, so there is no risk of the pregnant woman or her fetus developing COVID-19. These vaccines are safe for another reason. The mRNA used in both vaccines to stimulate a protective immune response never enters the nucleus of a cell. That means it doesn’t interact with the DNA that encodes the human genome of the mother or fetus.

The caveat is that safety data is lacking for the COVID-19 vaccines, because pregnant women were intentionally excluded in the phase 3 studies of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. In the absence of clinical trial data on the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in pregnant and breastfeeding women, but with the expectation that these vaccines should be safe in these populations, both the CDC and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) have recommended that vaccination be a personal decision of women who are pregnant.

For pregnant women who decide to be vaccinated, any fever associated with vaccination should be treated with acetaminophen, since fever has been associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes. There is no concern that the vaccines will interfere with lactation and no reason not to be vaccinated if you are breastfeeding.

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