This piece was originally published on Aug. 22, 2021. It is regularly updated with new research on COVID-19 and pregnancy under the “More studies” subhead. It was last updated on August 16, 2022.
On Sept. 29, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a health advisory recommending “urgent action” to increase COVID-19 vaccination among people who are pregnant, trying to or might become pregnant or were pregnant recently, in order to prevent serious illness, death and adverse pregnancy outcomes due to the coronavirus infection.
“Pregnancy can be both a special time and also a stressful time – and pregnancy during a pandemic is an added concern for families,” said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky in a news release. “I strongly encourage those who are pregnant or considering pregnancy to talk with their healthcare provider about the protective benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine to keep their babies and themselves safe.”
The agency’s recommendation follows a growing body of research that shows benefits of COVID-19 vaccine before or during pregnancy far outweigh the potential risks for moms and babies.
It aims to improve vaccination rates among pregnant people in the U.S., only 31% of whom have received their COVID-19 shot. That’s compared with 56% of U.S. adults who have been fully vaccinated. And even though the overall gap in coronavirus vaccination disparities is narrowing, pregnant people who are Hispanic and Black continue to fall behind in getting their shots compared to their white counterparts, according to the CDC: 25% of Hispanic or Latino and 15.6% of Black individuals who are pregnant have received their COVID shots, compared with 33.8% of white adults. The highest vaccination rate among pregnant individuals by race and ethnicity is among Asian adults, CDC data shows, at 45.7%.
The advisory follows an Aug. 11 update in which the CDC recommended the COVID-19 vaccine for all people 12 years and older, including pregnant people, saying there’s no evidence that the vaccine leads to fertility problems, miscarriage or other health issues. At the time, the federal agency’s endorsement was prompted by an increase in the number of infections among pregnant individuals.
As of Sept. 27, more than 125,000 pregnant people in the U.S. had been diagnosed with COVID-19, more than 22,000 hospitalized and 161 had died since the pandemic started, according to the latest available data from the CDC, which is updated weekly.
As of Sept. 18, 189,986 pregnant people in the U.S. were fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the latest available data from the agency.
The agency isn’t alone in recommending the vaccine. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, or ACOG, and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine — the two leading groups in the U.S. representing specialists providing health care for women — issued a joint statement in July, recommending that all pregnant people get vaccinated against COVID-19.
The World Health Organization recommends pregnant women get COVID-19 vaccines in consultation with their health-care provider. Also, in an interim guidance published in June, it recommends vaccination in pregnant women when the benefits outweigh potential risk, particularly for women who are at a high risk of exposure to COVID-19 and those whose comorbidities put them at a higher risk of developing severe COVID-19.
Even though the overall risk for severe COVID-19 infection remains low, studies have shown that pregnant people are at an increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19 compared with those who are not pregnant.
Underlying medical conditions such as asthma, diabetes, heart disease and obesity can increase the risk of complications even more for pregnant people. Pregnant individuals of color face higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19 due to persisting racial inequalities in the U.S., the CDC says.
In addition, pregnant people who were infected with COVID-19 during the third trimester are at an increased risk of having a preterm birth, which is delivery earlier than 37 weeks, compared with pregnant women who aren’t infected with the virus, according to a CDC study.
Studies are still underway and long-term safety data aren’t available yet, but relying on a growing body of evidence, the CDC says that at this point the benefits of receiving a COVID-19 vaccine outweigh any potential risks of vaccination during pregnancy.
But belief in misinformation continues to hamper vaccination efforts. A national survey by The COVID States Project, conducted between June and July, finds that 11% of Americans believe that COVID-19 vaccines can cause infertility, even though the claim has been debunked. About 20% of Americans also falsely believe that COVID-19 vaccines will alter people’s DNA, contain microchips to track people or contain the lung tissue of aborted fetuses, the survey shows. The COVID States Project was launched in March 2020 by a multi-university group of researchers, focusing on social behaviors and the impact of messaging on the pandemic.
In addition, pregnant people were excluded from the initial COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials, which also may have fueled vaccine hesitancy sentiments. Some COVID-19 vaccine makers have since planned to enroll pregnant people in their clinical trials.
We have summarized several academic papers that investigate outcomes of COVID-19 infection — and the vaccines against it — among pregnant individuals, to help journalists bolster their reporting with data. Please note that while the studies in this roundup have undergone the peer review process, the findings from most are still from a limited time frame, given that the pandemic arrived less than two years ago and the vaccines became available to the public less than a year ago. Periodically, we’ll update this roundup with new studies as new information comes to light.
Risk for Stillbirth Among Women With and Without COVID-19 at Delivery Hospitalization — United States, March 2020 – September 2021
Carla DeSisto; et. al. CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Nov. 2021
The study finds pregnant people with COVID-19 had a higher risk of experiencing a stillbirth compared with pregnant people who were not infected.
Among 8,154 stillbirths in U.S. hospitals between March 2020 and Sept. 2021, 1.26% occurred among those who had COVID-19, compared with 0.64% among those who weren’t infected. The risk of stillbirths increased with the arrival of the delta variant. In July to Sept. 2021, 2.7% of 1,171 stillbirths involved pregnant people with COVID-19, compared with 0.63% of those who were uninfected.
“This analysis adds to growing evidence of an association between COVID-19 in pregnancy and stillbirth, highlights that the risk for stillbirth associated with COVID-19 is affected by maternal morbidity, and demonstrates that the risk has increased during the Delta period,” the authors write.
It’s important to note that stillbirths are rare. Researchers looked at 1.25 million hospital deliveries in the study period, in which there were 8,154 stillbirths. That’s 0.65% of the deliveries.
Researchers also note that among deliveries with COVID-19, certain underlying medical conditions, such as chronic high blood pressure, and need for mechanical ventilation and ICU admission were associated with stillbirth.”
Additional studies are warranted to investigate the role of maternal complications from COVID-19 on the risk for stillbirth,” the authors write.
Researchers used the Premier Healthcare Database Special COVID-19 Release (PHD-SR), a large hospital-based administrative database for their study. Even though the database is large, it only includes hospitals that report their data and the findings may not be generalizable to the U.S. population, the authors write.
Characteristics and Outcomes of Women With COVID-19 Giving Birth at US Academic Centers During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Justine Chinn; et al. JAMA Network Open, August 2021.
The study shows that pregnant women with COVID-19 had higher rates of preterm birth, ICU admission, respiratory failure requiring intubation, and death compared with pregnant women who didn’t have COVID-19.
Using a large national database without patient-identifying information, researchers looked at records for 869,079 women who gave birth at 499 U.S. medical centers between March 2020 and February 2021. Of those, 18,715 (2.2%) had COVID-19.
Researchers didn’t control for confounders like age, race and co-morbidities such as obesity when calculating outcomes.
The study finds that pregnant women with COVID-19 had a higher risk of preterm delivery — 16.4% versus 11.5%. That’s an increased risk of 42%.
The comparison of pregnant women with and without COVID-19 also shows that those with the infection were nearly six times more likely to be admitted to the ICU, 14 times more likely to require mechanical ventilation, and 15 more times likely to die in the hospital.
It’s important to note the risk of ICU admission, mechanical ventilation and death were still low in each group, relative to the total number of women in the sample. For instance, of the 18,715 pregnant women with COVID-19, 24 died. That’s about 13 deaths in 10,000. For pregnant women without COVID, there were 71 deaths in 850,364, or about 8 deaths in 10,000.
Researchers add that pregnant individuals with COVID-19 were more likely to be Hispanic or Black.
“This information is critically important given the ongoing issues surrounding health care disparities and race,” the authors write in the study. “When considering mortality during childbirth, it is important to understand that racial disparities have been well established preceding the COVID-19 pandemic; however, they have likely been augmented by the pandemic.”
They found no significant increase in C-sections among pregnant women with and without COVID-19.
Preliminary Findings of mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine Safety in Pregnant Persons
Dr. Tom Shimabukuro; et al. The New England Journal of Medicine, June 2021.
In this study, the authors use data from three U.S. vaccine monitoring systems and find no safety concerns among pregnant individuals who received COVID-19 vaccines manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, both of which are based on mRNA technology.
Researchers look at data for 35,691 pregnant individuals, using the V-safe Surveillance System and Pregnancy Registry, a new CDC smartphone-based surveillance app developed for the COVID-19 vaccination program, the V-safe Pregnancy Registry and the national Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VARES, between December 2020 and February 2021. They compared the data with published studies of pregnant populations before the pandemic.
They find that pregnant individuals didn’t report having any more severe reactions to the COVID-19 vaccines compared with women who were not pregnant — except for nausea and vomiting, which were reported slightly more frequently among vaccinated pregnant individuals after the second dose of the vaccine. Researchers also report similar pregnancy outcomes, including for preterm birth. No newborns, regardless of whether their mothers had received the COVID-19 vaccine, had birth defects.
The authors note that the registry data are preliminary and from a relatively small sample, describing pregnancy outcomes primarily from women who were vaccinated during the third trimester of pregnancy. Long-term studies with large numbers of women vaccinated earlier in pregnancy is needed to assess outcomes, the authors write.
They point out that the vaccines not only protect pregnant individuals from a severe COVID-19 infection, they may also provide some level of protection in newborn babies, although there’s a need for more research.
Update: Characteristics of Symptomatic Women of Reproductive Age with Laboratory-Confirmed SARS-CoV-2 Infection by Pregnancy Status — United States, January 22–October 3, 2020
Laura Zambrano; et al. CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, November 2020
This study compares COVID-19 infection in women who are and aren’t pregnant, finding that pregnant women with COVID-19 are at a higher risk for severe health outcomes.
Researchers use data from the CDC’s National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System for 409,462 women who had COVID-19 symptoms between January and October 2020. About 6%, or 23,434, of the study population were pregnant.
The authors adjusted for age, race and ethnicity and underlying medical conditions.
Their analysis shows that pregnant women with COVID-19 had three times the risk of being admitted to the ICU and requiring intubation, compared with women who were diagnosed with the infection but were not pregnant. They also had a 2.4 times higher risk of requiring extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, which is a heart-lung machine used in critically-ill patients. The pregnant women had a 70% increased risk of death.
Risk Factors for Illness Severity Among Pregnant Women With Confirmed Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Infection — Surveillance for Emerging Threats to Mothers and Babies Network, 22 State, Local, and Territorial Health Departments, 29 March 2020-5 March 2021
Dr. Romeo Galang; et al. Clinical Infectious Diseases, July 2021.
The aim of this study is to determine the risk factors associated with developing severe COVID-19 illness in pregnant women.
The authors used the CDC’s Surveillance for Emerging Threats to Mothers and Babies Network, or SET-NET, which collects information on pregnant individuals and their children for the first three years of their life from 31 state, local and territorial health departments in the U.S. They analyze data for 7,950 pregnant women who had a COVID-19 infection between March 2020 and March 2021.
They find that severe illness from COVID-19 in pregnant women is associated with being 25 years or older, having a job in the health care profession, obesity, chronic lung disease, chronic high blood pressure and diabetes. The severity of the COVID-related illness increased with the number of underlying medical conditions.
Having any underlying medical condition such as asthma or diabetes was associated with a 39% increased risk of severe or critical COVID-19 illness in pregnant women, while having three or more underlying conditions was associated with more than twice the risk, when compared with pregnant women who didn’t have any underlying medical conditions.
The authors note that the findings on risk factors are similar to what’s observed among nonpregnant adults.
“These data can help counsel pregnant women about their risk for moderate-to-severe or critical COVID-19 illness and guide their choice of prevention strategies, target public health messaging, and inform decisions around resource allocation,” the authors write.
The Coronavirus Disease 2019 Vaccine in Pregnancy: Risks, Benefits, and Recommendations
Dr. Irene Stafford, Dr. Jacqueline Parchem and Dr. Baha Sibai. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, January 2021.
This study stands out because the authors look back at history to show that this is not the first pandemic to pose a higher risk of severe disease for pregnant individuals.
During the 2002 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, pandemic, 25% of infected pregnant women died and 57% had miscarriages, the authors write.
Meanwhile, studies of the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic have shown higher rates of ICU admission and death among infected pregnant individuals than those who were not pregnant, they add.
The authors add that even though pregnant individuals were excluded from the initial mRNA COVID-19 vaccine trials, so far there’s no evidence that the vaccines pose a risk to them or their babies.
Additional research
SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 vaccination rates in pregnant women in Scotland
Sarah Stock; et. al. Nature Medicine, January 2022
This whole-population data from a national, prospective cohort in Scotland, shows that between December 2020 and October 2021, when the delta variant was dominant, severe complication association with COVID-19 during pregnancy, including critical care admission and death of babies, were more common in women who were unvaccinated when they were infected with the virus compared with women who were vaccinated. “Our data support the importance of women being vaccinated in pregnancy to prevent adverse outcomes associated with COVID-19,” the authors write.
The effect of maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection timing on birth outcomes: a retrospective multicentre cohort study
Samantha Piekos; et. al. The Lancet Digital Health, January 2022
Researchers used clinical data from Providence St. Joseph Health electronic health records for pregnant people who delivered in the U.S. Between March 5, 2020, and July 4, 2021, 73,666 pregnant people delivered, including 882 people infected with SARS-CoV-2 during their pregnancy. The team compared the pregnancy outcomes of the 822 individuals, none of whom were vaccinated, with those who tested negative for the virus during pregnancy. Their analysis shows those who were infected with COVID-19 during pregnancy were more likely to have poor birth outcomes, including preterm birth and stillbirth. “These results suggest that pregnant people would benefit from increased monitoring and enhanced prenatal care after first or second trimester SARS-CoV-2 infection, regardless of acute COVID-19 severity,” the authors write.
Receipt of COVID-19 Vaccine During Pregnancy and Preterm or Small-for-Gestational-Age at Birth — Eight Integrated Health Care Organizations, United States, December 15, 2020–July 22, 2021
Heather Lipkind; et. al. CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, January 2022
Among 46,079 pregnant women, 10,064 (21.8%) received one or more doses of the COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy. Nearly all were vaccinated during the second or third trimester. Researchers find “vaccination during pregnancy is not associated with preterm birth or small-for-gestational-age at birth overall, stratified by trimester of vaccination, or number of vaccine doses received during pregnancy, compared with unvaccinated pregnant women.”
Obstetrical outcomes and maternal morbidities associated with COVID-19 in pregnant women in France: A national retrospective cohort study
Sylvie Epelboin; et. al. PLOS Medicine, November 2021
Researchers investigated whether morbidities like preeclampsia, obesity, high blood pressure, and adverse outcomes like ICU admission and death were more common in pregnant women with COVID-19 compared with pregnant women without COVID-19 during the first wave of the pandemic, between January and June 2020. A total of 244,645 births were included from the French national hospitalization database, of which 874 (0.36%) were in the COVID-19 group. They found an association between maternal morbidities and diagnosis of COVID-19.
“Although causality cannot be determined from these associations, these results may be in line with recent recommendations in favor of vaccination for pregnant women,” researchers wrote.
COVID-19–Associated Deaths After SARS-CoV-2 Infection During Pregnancy — Mississippi, March 1, 2020 – October 6, 2021
Laurin Kasehagen; et. al. CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, November 2021
The report describes 15 COVID-19-associated deaths during pregnancy between March 2020 and Oct. 2021 in Mississippi. There were 1,637 COVID-19 infections among pregnant women during the study period, 15 of whom died. The median age of the 15 women who died was 30 years, ranging from 23–40 years. Nine were Black women, three were Hispanic and three were white.
“Given existing disparities in vaccination rates among pregnant women, partnerships to address vaccine access, hesitancy, or other concerns about vaccination can enhance fair and just access to COVID-19 vaccination, including among Black persons and Hispanic persons,” the authors write.
Short-term Reactions Among Pregnant and Lactating Individuals in the First Wave of the COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout
Dr. Alisa Kachikis; et al. JAMA Network Open, August 2021
This study is based on the first wave of vaccinations in the U.S. in March 2021. Researchers use data from the University of Washington COVID-19 Vaccine in Pregnancy and Lactation Registry to compare the experiences of COVID-19 vaccination among pregnant and lactating individuals with those who were neither pregnant nor lactating, but were planning pregnancy. The majority of the 17,525 participants were health-care workers and white. Researchers find that COVID-19 vaccines were well-tolerated among the three groups. Several study authors reported receiving grants from drug-makers including Merck, Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline, but not for this published study.
The Differences in Clinical Presentation, Management, and Prognosis of Laboratory-Confirmed COVID-19 between Pregnant and Non-Pregnant Women: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Durray Shahwar A. Khan; et al. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, May 2021
This study shows that pregnant women with COVID-19 had twice the risk of ICU admission and requiring mechanical ventilation compared with pregnant women who didn’t have COVID-19.
The Impact of COVID-19 on Pregnancy Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Shu Qin Wei, Marianne Bilodeau-Bertrand, Shiliang Liu and Nathalie Auger. Canadian Medical Association Journal, April 2021
This study looks at 42 international studies involving a combined 438,548 pregnant people. It finds that COVID-19 during pregnancy was associated with an 82% increased risk of preterm birth and a 33% increased risk of preeclampsia, which is a complication of high blood pressure, compared with no COVID-19 during pregnancy. The infection was also associated with a two-fold increase in the risk of stillbirth.
More studies and data sources
- “Risk of preterm birth, small for gestational age at birth, and stillbirth after covid-19 vaccination during pregnancy: population based retrospective cohort study,” Deshayne Fell; et. al. The BMJ, August 2022.
- “Comparison of Pregnancy and Birth Outcomes Before vs During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Rose Molina; et al. JAMA Network Open, August 2022.
- “Safety of COVID-19 Vaccines in Pregnancy: a Canadian National Vaccine Safety (CANVAS) Network Cohort Study,” Manish Sadarangani; et al. LANCET Infectious Diseases, August 2022.
- “Maternal immune response and placental antibody transfer after COVID-19 vaccination across trimester and platforms,” Caroline G. Atyeo; et. al. Nature Communications, June 2022.
- “Maternal Vaccination and Risk of Hospitalization for Covid-19 among Infants.” Dr. Natasha B. Halasa; et. al. NEJM, June 2022.
- “Association of COVID-19 Vaccination During Early Pregnancy With Risk of Congenital Fetal Anomalies,” Dr. Rachel S. Ruderman; et al. JAMA Pediatrics, April 2022.
- CDC data on health outcomes among pregnant people diagnosed with COVID-19
- CDC data on birth and infant outcomes for people with COVID-19 during pregnancy
- CDC data on the percentage of pregnant people receiving at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy
- CDC COVID-19 toolkit for pregnant people and new parents
- American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ practice advisories on COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccination (also a good source for the latest clinical studies)
- Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine’s COVID-19 clinical guidance
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