The researchers announced the results of a new study by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists that may suggest that pregnant women who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 may transmit antibodies to their newborn babies.
The study’s conclusion found that:
COVID-19 mRNA vaccines generated robust humoral immunity in pregnant and lactating women, with immunogenicity and reactogenicity similar to those seen in non-pregnant women. Immune responses induced by vaccines were significantly greater than the response to natural infection. Immunological transfer to neonates occurred through the placenta and breast milk.
Dr. Andrea Edlow is a specialist in maternal and fetal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and co-author of the study.
“It looks like great news,” Edlow told NBC’s “TODAY” program. “This study is a key piece of the puzzle to try to give pregnant and lactating women evidence-based advice about the vaccine.”
Dr. Iffath Hoskins is an OB-GYN at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York and president-elect of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists who said the findings are “very comforting”. She noted that a pregnant woman’s immune system is subdued so that her body does not reject a fetus, so people were unsure about how a vaccine would work for a pregnant woman.
“What this study is showing us is that the mother has a robust response,” said Hoskins, although she did not participate in the most recent survey. “Her body wakes up … producing antibodies against the stimulus that just happened, which is the vaccine against the coronavirus.
Edlow added that the study was not done to get answers about how safe the vaccine is in general.
The study was designed with “131 vaccine recipients of reproductive age (84 pregnant, 31 lactating and 16 non-pregnant)” in two different academic medical centers. Research has shown that pregnant and lactating women “elicited comparable vaccine-induced humoral immune responses” in non-pregnant people. He also found that pregnant and lactating women “generated higher antibody titers than those seen after SARS-CoV-2 infection in pregnancy.”
Although there is little information about the long-term effects of COVID-19 vaccines and how they affect the general public, or pregnant women specifically, experts told NBC News that COVID-19 is a known risk.
“There’s a big bucket of ‘we don’t know’,” said Hoskins. “In my personal opinion, there is a bigger bucket of ‘We know Covid sucks and it’s really bad for everyone, including a pregnant woman’.”
“We can certainly tell them with complete certainty that getting Covid pregnant is potentially very dangerous,” said Edlow.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that “pregnant women are at greater risk of serious illness due to COVID-19 compared to non-pregnant women … Furthermore, pregnant women with COVID-19 may be at an increased risk of results adverse effects of pregnancy, such as preterm birth, compared to pregnant women without COVID-19. ”
There have been no widespread long-term studies on the safety of pregnant women receiving COVID-19 vaccines. The CDC notes that “there are currently limited data on the safety of COVID-19 vaccines in pregnant women” and explains, “Clinical trials that examine safety and how well COVID-19 vaccines work in pregnant women are ongoing or planned. Vaccine manufacturers are also monitoring data from people in clinical trials who received the vaccine and became pregnant. Animal studies that received the Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech or Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen (J & J / Janssen) COVID-19 vaccine before or during pregnancy did not find safety problems. ”
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