Covid-19 vaccines are safe in pregnancy and cause no injury to the placenta, say, researchers, dispelling covid-19 vaccine hesitancy among pregnant women.
The placenta is that the first organ that forms during pregnancy. It performs duties for many of the fetus’ organs while they’re still forming, like providing oxygen while the lungs develop and nutrition while the gut is forming.
Additionally, the placenta manages hormones and therefore the system, and tells the mother’s body to welcome and nurture the fetus instead of rejecting it as a far-off intruder.
“The Internet has amplified a priority that the vaccine might trigger an immunological response that causes the mother to reject the fetus,” said Jeffery Goldstein, professor of pathology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of drugs.
But the study, published within the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, shows that it “doesn’t happen.” The findings showed that the Covid vaccine doesn’t damage the placenta — abnormal blood flow between mother and baby in utero.
The team collected placentas from 84 vaccinated patients and 116 unvaccinated patients who delivered at Prentice Women’s Hospital in Chicago and pathologically examined the whole of the placenta and microscopically the following birth. Most patients received vaccines — either Moderna or Pfizer — during their trimester.
The scientists also searched for abnormal blood flow between the mother and fetus and problems with fetal blood flow — both of which are reported in pregnant patients who have tested positive for Covid.
The rate of those injuries was equivalent within the vaccinated patients as for control patients, Goldstein said.
The scientists also examined the placentas for chronic histiocytic intervillositis — a complication that will happen if the placenta is infected, during this case, by SARS-CoV-2. Although this study didn’t find any cases in vaccinated patients, it is a very rare condition that needs a bigger sample size (1,000 patients) to differentiate between vaccinated and unvaccinated patients, the researchers said.
