Study shows COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective for pregnant women and babies too

COVID-19 vaccines are greatly effective at protecting pregnant women and their babies as well, according to a new study.

The research, published Thursday in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, examined 131 vaccine recipients, including 84 who were pregnant, 31 who were breastfeeding, and 16 who weren’t pregnant as a control group.

According to earlier studies, the COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna were found to be safe and effective. But this is a massive study looking at the immune responses of pregnant and lactating women to vaccination at the moment.

Pregnant women were avoided from large-scale clinical trials, which left them in confusion about whether to get the shots or not.

Jacqueline Parchem, a maternal-fetal medicine doctor said that she felt a little worried the first week the shots were offered as she was a 31-week pregnant woman in mid-December.

“I’m a scientist first and we didn’t have the data,” said Parchem, who was immediately eligible for vaccination as a health care worker at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

She said she was confident regarding the performance of vaccines like Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna’s 95% effectiveness. In her talks with scientist friends, no one said that vaccines could be harmful to babies.

According to safety data, more than 60,000 pregnant women have signed up for the government’s v-safe program at present.

According to a new study conducted at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, both in Boston, it was found that pregnant and nursing women receive the same protection from vaccines as non-pregnant women and more protection than they would get from an infection with the virus that causes COVID-19. 

Also, there is no indication that babies were harmed in any way by the vaccine shots. Adding to that, the babies born to vaccinated pregnant mothers had antibodies to COVID-19.