Kristina Adams Waldorf, MD, recently coauthored a study that found a higher risk of hospitalization and death among people with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) who were pregnant than among those who weren’t pregnant.
Still, 1 of her patients, a pregnant health care worker, “is kind of unsure” about whether she should get vaccinated, Adams Waldorf, an obstetrician-gynecologist at the University of Washington, said in an interview. The patient worries that a COVID-19 vaccine could harm her fetus.
No wonder she is concerned.
All the COVID-19 vaccine trials, like virtually all clinical trials, have excluded pregnant and lactating individuals from participating; however, developmental and reproductive toxicity studies with the Moderna vaccine in rats haven’t uncovered any worrisome signals.