Can Women Who Are Pregnant Get the COVID-19 Vaccine?

Can Women Who Are Pregnant Get the COVID-19 Vaccine?

Hank Bernstein, MD: I'm Hank Bernstein and I'm speaking on behalf of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. So, the question that we’re asking is, “Can pregnant women receive the COVID-19 vaccine?” And the answer, yes, and here’s why. Observational data suggest that it’s rare for a pregnant woman to get COVID-19, but if they do get COVID-19, they’re more likely to be hospitalized, perhaps in the intensive care unit, and perhaps even dying. But we know, for example, that 10% of pregnant women will need to be hospitalized if they get COVID-19, where only 3% of non-pregnant women of the same age range, 20 to 39 years, get hospitalized. So, you can see the difference when there's a woman who is pregnant.

Of course, it’s totally understandable for pregnant women to question whether indeed they should be getting a COVID-19 vaccine since it’s so relatively new. But, fortunately, it has not been the case that there’s a problem associated with receipt of the COVID-19 vaccine. In fact, safety monitoring of COVID-19 vaccine administration has been historic. We have data on millions of individuals and actually 35,000 pregnant women, which is phenomenal. And in having all of that data, there have been no safety signals identified for those pregnant women or their newborns, so that is really good news and is exciting and should be quite reassuring. But I would understand when women have questions, and that the decision to whether or not to get a COVID-19 vaccine should be discussed in detail with their healthcare provider. They may have questions, want more information, just want to discuss it, and I would encourage you to discuss it with your healthcare provider.

Thank you.