No increase in pregnancy complications after COVID-19 vaccination, study
finds
Date:
March 24, 2022
Source:
Karolinska Institutet
Summary:
Vaccination against COVID-19 during pregnancy is not associated
with a higher risk of pregnancy complications, according to a
large-scale registry study.
FULL STORY ========================================================================== Vaccination against COVID-19 during pregnancy is not associated with
a higher risk of pregnancy complications, according to a large-scale
registry study from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and the Norwegian
Institute of Public Health published in the journal JAMA.
==========================================================================
The study, which comprised almost 160,000 pregnancies, found no increase
in the risk of preterm birth, growth retardation, low Apgar scores at
birth or the need for neonatal care after vaccination against COVID-19
during pregnancy.
"The results are reassuring and can hopefully make pregnant individuals
more willing to get vaccinated," says co-first author Anne O"rtqvist
Rosin, researcher at the Department of Medicine, Karolinska Institutet
(Solna).
Earlier studies have shown that pregnant women belong to a risk group for serious COVID-19 requiring intensive care with a higher risk of death
than non- pregnant women of a fertile age. Pregnant women with severe
COVID-19 are also more likely to have preterm births. Since January 2021, efficacious COVID-19 vaccines have been available in Sweden and Norway,
and in May 2021 Sweden recommended all pregnant individuals to have a
COVID-19 jab, followed in August by Norway.
"We're still seeing that vaccination rates are lower than in the rest
of the population, so it's likely that there's some concern about how
the vaccines affect the pregnant individual and the fetus," explains Dr O"rtqvist Rosin.
"When the vaccines were produced, pregnant women were not included in the
large clinical studies, and until now there have been no population-based
data about any risk there might be to them." The researchers linked
Sweden's Pregnancy Register and Norway's Medical Birth Register to
each country's vaccination register to obtain data on if and when
pregnant individuals were vaccinated and with which vaccine. The study
included a total of 157,521 individuals who gave birth between January
2021 and January 2022, of whom almost one fifth (18 per cent) had been vaccinated. It was found that vaccinated individuals were at no higher
risk than unvaccinated of developing one of the studied complications.
The majority of the pregnant individuals included in the study were
vaccinated after week 12 in accordance with current recommendations. 95
per cent received an mRNA vaccine (Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna). This
should be taken into consideration when interpreting the results, which
were similar for the different mRNA vaccines irrespective of whether
one or two doses were given.
Vaccination during the third trimester and vaccination with the Moderna
vaccine was associated with a slightly lower risk of neonatal care.
One potential advantage of vaccination during pregnancy is that the
antibodies thus formed pass through the placenta, providing the newborn
baby with a certain degree of protection against COVID-19.
"We're now planning to study how long this protection lasts, and if
SARS-CoV- 2 infection or vaccination during pregnancy has any other
lasting effects on the child's health," says joint last author Professor
Olof Stephansson at the Department of Medicine, Karolinska Institutet
(Solna).
The study was a collaboration between researchers at Sweden's Karolinska Institutet and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. It was supported
by grants from the Research Council of Norway, NordForsk and the European Research Council (ERC). Co-author and KI researcher Rickard Ljung has
received a fee from Pfizer beyond the scope of this study and is an
employee of the Swedish Medical Products Agency. No other potential
conflicts of interest have been reported.
========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Karolinska_Institutet. Note: Content
may be edited for style and length.
========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Maria C. Magnus, Anne K. O"rtqvist, Elisabeth Dahlqwist, Rickard
Ljung,
Fredrik Skaar, Laura Oakley, Ferenc Macsali, Bjo"rn Pasternak,
Haakon K.
Gjessing, Siri E. Haaberg, Olof Stephansson. Association
of SARS-CoV- 2 Vaccination During Pregnancy With Pregnancy
Outcomes. JAMA, 2022; DOI: 10.1001/jama.2022.3271 ==========================================================================
Link to news story:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220324122504.htm
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