Vaccinations

• Vaccination with inactivated or live-attenuated virus is recommended during pregnancy. Peer-reviewed studies support COVID-19 vaccine safety and protective effects on pregnant people and their newborns.

Influenza infection that occurs during pregnancy can compromise maternal and fetal outcomes. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that all pregnant women should receive vaccination against influenza.

Inactivated influenza vaccines (IIVs) or live attenuated influenza vaccines (H1N1) have subsequently been administered to millions of women during pregnancy, and a wealth of evidence from large observational studies and meta-analyses suggests that vaccination during pregnancy is not associated with an increased risk of adverse outcomes for mothers. Although the literature is limited, and no RCT studies could be found, no concerning patterns of medical conditions in infants were identified, when the pregnant mother was vaccinated during any of the trimesters.

Furthermore, data from clinical trials and post-marketing surveillance showed no evidence that vaccination with AS04- adjuvanted human papillomavirus (HPV-16/18)/ Cervarix®) during the defined exposure period (from 60 days before conception until delivery) increases the risk of teratogenicity (Angelo et al. 2014).

SARS-CoV-2 infection poses increased risks of poor outcomes during pregnancy, including preterm birth and stillbirth. There is a small increase in frequency of preterm birth and caesarean birth, related to severe maternal illness. Extensive clinical data exists, confirming the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy. After COVID-19 vaccination, pregnant people elicited a robust immune response, and vaccinations conferred protective immunity to newborns through breast milk and the placental transfer. Vaccination for all pregnant women is recommended. Several agents are being evaluated for the treatment of COVID-19, but with minimal or no information on safety in pregnancy. These results could form the basis for further research. 

For more information, visit our pages on COVID-19.

Although it is recommended to cautiously continue a well-tolerated allergen immunotherapy during pregnancy, its initiation is contraindicated in order to avoid the consequences of an anaphylactic episode. No significant difference was found in the incidence of prematurity, hypertension/proteinuria, congenital malformations or perinatal deaths between the women continued on allergen immunotherapy (IT) (both subcutaneous (SC) IT and sublingual (SL) IT during pregnancy compared to controls (Oykhman et al. 2015).