A Canadian study has found that pregnant women can get COVID-19 mRNA vaccines safely, and they end up with side effects less often than people who aren’t pregnant.
The study looked at how pregnant and non-pregnant women reacted to the mRNA vaccines one week after their second dose.
More than seven percent of pregnant women felt unwell afterward, had to leave school, work or seek medical attention because of symptoms such as headaches or fatigue.
For non-pregnant women, more than 11 percent had to take time off or seek medical attention in the week after the second dose.
The study, published in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases, looked at more than 180,000 women who received a first dose of an mRNA vaccine and more than 94,000 who received a second dose.
Among them, nearly 5600 were pregnant for their first dose and more than 3100 were pregnant for their second.
The study also included a control group of more than 6100 unvaccinated women, of whom almost 340 were pregnant.
About three percent of unvaccinated pregnant women reported similar health events such as headaches or fatigue in a given week, raising the possibility that some of the vaccinated pregnant women’s symptoms were not caused by a vaccine .
Researchers at the British Columbia Children’s Hospital Research Institute were surprised by the findings, not expecting to see a lower rate of health events among pregnant women compared to people who weren’t pregnant. .
“Previous studies of other vaccines in pregnant women have mostly reported no significant differences in health events between pregnant and non-pregnant women or found higher rates during pregnancy,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Julie Bettinger.
“Further studies of non-COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are required to identify whether the reduced side effects observed in pregnant individuals in this study are a feature of the mRNA vaccine platform or of these specific vaccines.”
The researchers said the findings add to the growing body of evidence that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are safe during pregnancy. There was no significant difference for “serious” health events between groups.
Another US study has found that healthcare systems should put extra resources into dealing with patients with COVID-19 for six months after their infections, due to the continued effects of the virus.
The study, published by The Journal of the American Medical Association, analyzed more than 250,000 people, half of whom tested positive for COVID.
It found that people who tested positive used the healthcare system more in the six months after infection than people who tested negative.
In particular, people sought post-Covid care for conditions such as alopecia, bronchitis, pulmonary embolism or deep vein thrombosis, and shortness of breath, the study found.