There is no evidence so far to indicate Covid vaccines affect fertility or the ability to have children, according to the UK’s medical regulator.
There is also no pattern so far to suggest that any of the vaccines used in the UK, or reactions to them, increase the risk of miscarriage or stillbirth, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said.
It said the numbers of reports of miscarriages and stillbirth are ‘low in relation to the number of pregnant women who have received Covid vaccines to date’.
It comes after England’s chief midwife last month called on pregnant women to get vaccinated.
Figures revealed the vast majority of pregnant women hospitalised with Covid were unvaccinated.
At the beginning of the inoculation rollout last December, the jabs were not routinely offered to pregnant women due to a lack of data on how safe the injections were.
But the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which advises the Government on jabs, later concluded it was safe to vaccinate pregnant women.
Mothers-to-be are given the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines eight weeks apart.
The MHRA says data from 90,000 pregnant women around the world who have been vaccinated against Covid revealed no increased risk of miscarriage, stillbirth or fertility issues
Women who contract COVID-19 while pregnant can increase the risk of a premature birth by up to 60%, study finds
Contracting COVID-19 while pregnant can increase a woman’s risk of giving birth prematurely, a study found.
Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, concluded pregnant women who test positive for virus were more likely to deliver their baby 37 weeks or earlier.
Researchers, who published their findings in The Lancet Regional Health, gathered data from more than 240,000 birth from July 2020 to January 2021.
Nearly 9,000 women had tested positive for the virus at some point during their pregnancy, while the rest made up a control group.
For every one very preterm birth by a woman who had never contracted the virus, 1.6 were found among those that did, or a 60 percent increased risk.
Researchers also found 1.4 preterm births (32 to 37 weeks) among women from the Covid group for every one in the control group – or a 40 percent increase.
For every one early term birth (37 to 39 weeks) in the control group, there were 1.1 found in the COVID-19 group – a 10 percent increase.
Premature birth can have short and long-term negative effects on a child.
These include not having fully developed organs , leading to heart and brain problems and difficulty breathing.
Later in their life, they are more at risk to develop cerebral palsy, asthma and other conditions.
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In its update yesterday, the MHRA said the numbers of reported miscarriages and stillbirth are ‘low in relation to the number of pregnant women who have received Covid vaccines to date and how commonly these events occur in the UK outside of the pandemic’.
The regulator added: ‘There is no pattern from the reports to suggest that any of the Covid vaccines used in the UK, or any reactions to these vaccines, increase the risk of miscarriage or stillbirth.
‘There is no pattern from the reports to suggest that any of the Covid vaccines used in the UK increase the risk of congenital anomalies or birth complications.’
‘Pregnant women have reported similar suspected reactions to the vaccines as people who are not pregnant,’ it added.
The MHRA said it is currently reviewing reports of suspected side effects of menstrual disorders and unexpected vaginal bleeding after being vaccinated.
But it has so far found nothing to support a link between changes to menstrual periods and related symptoms and coronavirus jabs, adding ‘the menstrual changes reported are mostly transient in nature’.
Pregnant women have the same risk of catching the coronavirus as everyone else, but the MHRA says they may be an increased risk of becoming very ill, especially if they get infected in their third trimester or have underlying health problems.
Pregnant women who do get symptomatic Covid are two to three times more likely to give birth to their baby prematurely.
It comes after analysis of hospital figures by the University of Oxford last month showed the number of pregnant women admitted to hospital with Covid has jumped seven-fold since May – from 28 per week to 200.
Some 99 per cent of these Covid victims are unjabbed and fewer than one in 12 pregnant women have come forward for their jabs, according to the researchers.
England’s chief midwife, Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent, wrote to maternity staff stressing the need to encourage mums-to-be to come forward.
She said healthcare staff have ‘a responsibility to proactively encourage pregnant women’ to have a jab.
Experts and campaigners have accused NHS maternity staff of spreading ‘misinformation’ about vaccines and underestimating the risk of the virus to pregnant women – who are ten times more likely to be hospitalised than the average person.
Source link : https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9900413/No-evidence-Covid-jabs-raise-miscarriage-risk-MHRA-says.html
