Not that long ago, our medical professionals would have never, ever vaccinated a woman during pregnancy.

But today, injections during pregnancy are becoming routine, despite limited safety data.

For many women, it may seem like it’s no big deal to get a TDaP or a Flu shot during pregnancy, but it may surprise you to learn that the recommendations for these injections during pregnancy came as recently as 2013, and 2004, respectively.

And the safety data on this is extremely lacking.

Vaccines during pregnancy are still a very new thing. We should ALL be on alert, and making sure these “experts” are crossing all the T’s and dotting all the i’s.

COVID Vaccines During Pregnancy

None of the COVID-19 vaccines included pregnant women in their clinical trials, but that didn’t stop the CDC from encouraging pregnant women to get vaccinated.

The CDC gave the recommendation that pregnant women ‘can get a COVID vaccine’.

And then as with all vaccines, and all people, the plan is to gather post-marketing surveillance to see how safe the vaccines are, or are not.

Why You Need To Read Studies Carefully

According to this study, Preliminary Findings of mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine Safety in Pregnant Persons

“Preliminary findings did not show obvious safety signals among pregnant persons who received mRNA Covid-19 vaccines. However, more longitudinal follow-up, including follow-up of large numbers of women vaccinated earlier in pregnancy, is necessary to inform maternal, pregnancy, and infant outcomes.”

However, an astute reader sent a letter to the editor regarding the study’s Table 4.

Under 20 weeks of pregnancy, there were 104 spontaneous abortions in the V-safe registry. According to the study, the denominator of 827 includes:

† Data on pregnancy loss are based on 827 participants in the v-safe pregnancy registry who received an mRNA Covid-19 vaccine (BNT162b2 [Pfizer–BioNTech] or mRNA-1273 [Moderna]) from December 14, 2020, to February 28, 2021, and who reported a completed pregnancy. A total of 700 participants (84.6%) received their first eligible dose in the third trimester. Data on neonatal outcomes are based on 724 live-born infants, including 12 sets of multiples.

So, 700 of the 827 women got their first dose in the third trimester, and would never had been at risk of “spontaneous abortion” since they were past 20 weeks.

This is clever.

I’ve seen this before in SIDS studies, where they include infants below 2 months of age who were ‘too young to be vaccinated’ per the schedule at the time, to then “conclude” that vaccines reduce the risk for SIDS, yet a vaccine administered at 2 or 4 months could not, and would never prevent a death in a 4 week old. Vaccines cause most SIDS by the way.

Obviously, only women who received their vaccine prior to 20 weeks of pregnancy should be included in the evaluation of risk regarding miscarriage before 20 weeks and COVID vaccination.

Including women who got their vaccine in the third trimester would not give us the right picture, and how they didn’t realize this, I don’t know.

Based on the Data COVID Vaccine Causes Miscarriages

If we adjust for the true denominator then, around 127, we have a much higher rate of miscarriage, as the letter to the editor points out:

In table 4, the authors report a rate of spontaneous abortions <20 weeks (SA) of 12.5% (104 abortions/827 completed pregnancies). However, this rate should be based on the number of women who were at risk of an SA due to vaccine receipt and should exclude the 700 women who were vaccinated in their third-trimester (104/127 = 82%). We acknowledge this rate will likely decrease as the pregnancies of women who were vaccinated <20 weeks complete but believe the rate will be higher than 12.5%. However, given the importance of these findings we feel it important to report these rates accurately.

Additionally, the authors indicate that the rate of SAs in the published literature is between 10% and 26%. 3-5 However, the upper cited rate includes clinically-unrecognized pregnancies,3 which does not reflect the clinically recognized pregnancies of this cohort and should be removed.

The denominator should include all women who received the COVID vaccine prior to 20 weeks, and who surpassed 20 weeks of pregnancy. Because the data is not in, can we really say one way or another?

Based on this finding, we do not have data to support safety. And in contrast, have data to support concern for vaccinating women during pregnancy.

Watch the HighWire episode that covers this important finding.