Study confirms: Corona vaccine does not increase the risk of malformed fetuses

It does not increase the risk of malformations in the fetus if the mother receives a vaccine against covid-19 or is infected with corona in the first part of the pregnancy.

The University of Copenhagen writes this in a press release.

During the corona crisis, there was a debate about whether the vaccine against covid-19 could be harmful to pregnant women and their unborn children.

Researchers from the University of Copenhagen teamed up with colleagues in Norway and Sweden to find out if the concern had anything to do with it.

They examined data from 343,066 newborn children, making it the largest study in its field to date.

– We found no increased risk of malformations in children of mothers who had received a covid-19 vaccination or infection in the first trimester, says assistant professor at the Department of Public Health Stine Kjær Urhøj.

The study shows that 4.8 percent of the children whose mothers had been vaccinated in the first trimester had malformations.

Correspondingly, malformations were found in 5.1 percent of the children whose mothers had not received the vaccine.

If you look at the children of mothers who were infected with the coronavirus during pregnancy, the same trend applies.

Here, malformations were found in 4.8 percent of the children whose mothers had the infection in the first trimester.

In comparison, there were malformations in 5.2 percent of the children whose mothers had not been infected.

– So we saw no statistically significant difference in the risk of malformations between pregnant women who had received a vaccine or infection and those who had not, says Stine Kjær Urhøj.

The researchers also found no difference in the risk of malformations in relation to the different variants of covid-19 that have been at play.

The study includes people who were vaccinated with either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.

Neither higher nor lower risk of malformations in the fetus was found depending on the type of vaccine.

The study has been published in the medical journal BMJ.

/ritzau/