Women who received COVID-19 vaccines during pregnancy yielded no damage to the placenta, a new study shows. The Northwestern Medicine research, published in the journal
Obstetrics & Gynecology, looked into the placentas from patients who received the COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy and found no evidence of injury .
The study is significant: it add to the growing evidence that COVID-19 vaccines, at least the ones that use the mRNA platform, are safe in pregnancy.
The study’s corresponding author Dr. Jeffery Goldstein, assistant professor of pathology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, explained: “The placenta is like the ‘black box’ in an airplane. If something goes wrong with a pregnancy, we usually see changes in the placenta that can help us figure out what happened.”
The researchers noted that there is a lot of vaccine hesitancy, especially among pregnant people. Our team hopes these data, albeit preliminary, can reduce concerns about the risk of the vaccine to the pregnancy, said study co-author Emily Miller, assistant professor at Northwestern University.
The study authors examined the placentas from 84 vaccinated patients and 116 unvaccinated patients who delivered at a hospital in Chicago, US.
Most patients received vaccines either Moderna or Pfizer during their third trimester.
Last year, the same team published a study that found placentas of women who tested positive for the Covid-19 virus while pregnant showed abnormal blood flow between mother and baby in utero.
COVID-19 vaccine does not damage the placenta in pregnancy
A new Northwestern Medicine study of placentas from patients who received the COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy found no evidence of injury, adding to the growing literature that COVID-19 vaccines are safe in pregnancy.
The placenta is like the black box in an airplane.”
Dr. Jeffery Goldstein
Northwestern Medicine pathologist
“The placenta is like the black box in an airplane. If something goes wrong with a pregnancy, we usually see changes in the placenta that can help us figure out what happened,” said corresponding author Dr. Jeffery Goldstein, assistant professor of pathology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a Northwestern Medicine pathologist. “From what we can tell, the COVID vaccine does not damage the placenta.”
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COVID19 vaccines are safe in pregnancy, does not damage placenta: Study
Covid-19 vaccines are safe in pregnancy and cause no injury to placenta, say researchers, dispelling vaccine hesitancy among pregnant women. The placenta is the first organ that forms during pregnancy. It performs duties for most of the fetus organs while they re still forming, such as providing oxygen while the lungs develop and nutrition while the gut is forming.
Additionally, the placenta manages hormones and the immune system, and tells the mother s body to welcome and nurture the fetus rather than reject it as a foreign intruder. The Internet has amplified a concern that the vaccine might trigger an immunological response that causes the mother to reject the fetus, said Jeffery Goldstein, Assistant Professor of pathology at Northwestern University s Feinberg School of Medicine.