Two new studies provide additional evidence that COVID-19 vaccines are safe both before and during pregnancy. 

One of the studies, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, looked at around 18,500 pregnant women in Norway, including some 4,500 who had had miscarriages. No association could be identified between COVID-19 vaccines and the risk for miscarriage in the first trimester, irrespective of the vaccines administered, whether Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, or AstraZeneca. Women with miscarriages were 9% less likely to have been vaccinated, noted researchers. 

In a second study published in The Lancet, investigators evaluated 107 women who became pregnant while they participated in the trials of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine in the UK, Brazil and South Africa. Among these, 72 women had received the vaccine while the others received a placebo. The vaccine had no effect on the likelihood of the pregnancy proceeding safely to term… (Reuters, October 23, 2021)