A pregnant woman shows her vaccination card after receving a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in Bogota, on July 23, 2021 ( AFP / Raul ARBOLEDA)

EU maintains recommendation on Covid-19 vaccines for pregnant women

This article is more than one year old.
Published on June 7, 2023 at 21:42
4 min read
By Marie GENRIES, AFP Belgium, AFP Canada
Translation and adaptation Marisha GOLDHAMER

Health officials continue to recommend the Covid-19 vaccine during pregnancy, contrary to claims circulating on social media which falsely say it impacts fertility, misinterpreting an advisory from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) about possible changes to a person's menstrual cycle following messenger RNA shots. To date, the jabs have not been linked to adverse outcomes specific to pregnancy, whereas a coronavirus infection does increase the risk of complications, according to experts.

"BREAKING: The European Union is now advising against pregnant women getting the COVID vaccine," said a May 31, 2023 tweet. It was shared on Facebook, Instagram, and Telegram in English and French.

Another May 31 tweet that spread as a screenshot to Instagram declared: "BREAKING: The European Union is now warning pregnant women not to get the COVID-19 vaccine due to the possibility of infertility and miscarriage."

Screenshot of a Tweet taken on June 7, 2023

Screenshot of an Instagram post taken June 7, 2023

It was sent from an account that is no longer active, but archived versions show its profile described the person behind the tweets as the "Founder of Leading Report."

The account posted a thread claiming its evidence came from an October 2022 EMA press release (archived here) stating "heavy menstrual bleeding should be added to the product information as a side effect of unknown frequency of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines Comirnaty (Pfizer) and Spikevax (Moderna)."

Similar claims were made in a May 30, 2023 article published by The Expose, a website AFP has repeatedly fact-checked for spreading vaccine misinformation.

But the EMA called these claims a "deliberate disinformation campaign," in a statement emailed to AFP on June 2, 2023.

"These allegations are a misinterpretation of the decision of EMA's safety committee (PRAC) to add heavy menstrual bleeding as a side effect," the statement said. "The committee specified, in the communication issued at the time of the recommendation, that there is no evidence or plausible mechanism to suggest that menstrual changes experienced by some women following vaccination have any impact on fertility."

The EMA confirmed it has not changed its guidance advising those who are pregnant to get vaccinated in line with national recommendations.

Similarly, the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada recommends Covid-19 vaccination to protect during pregnancy, as does the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

AFP also contacted the European Commission, which said it has not advised against vaccination for pregnant women.

"The Commission invites everyone to follow the recommendations of the EMA," a spokesperson said on June 6.

Vaccines offer protection

The safety of vaccination during pregnancy is a topic AFP has fact-checked multiple times, with independent experts saying all available data confirm the shots reduce the risk of serious complications, including miscarriage.

"We have data on thousands of pregnant women who have received these vaccines and there is no indication that Covid vaccination is linked to miscarriages," Nicolas Dauby, an infectious disease specialist at CHU Saint-Pierre hospital in Brussels.

On the contrary, "we know that the Covid vaccination is safe for the mother and the baby, while a Covid infection during pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of giving birth prematurely," he said on June 2.

A meta-analysis published in October 2022 concluded: "Based on the studies published so far, there is no scientific proof of any association between Covid-19 vaccines and fertility impairment in men or women."

Additional misinformation

The Expose article also claimed "confidential Pfizer documents" show the Covid-19 vaccine can be shed, endangering pregnant women.

As AFP has previously reported, this theory is unfounded.

The CDC says on its website: "Vaccine shedding is the release or discharge of any of the vaccine components in or outside of the body and can only occur when a vaccine contains a live weakened version of the virus."

This is not the case for any of the Covid-19 shots authorized in the US and Canada.

While the mRNA vaccines introduce a "blueprint" of the virus's spike protein, which the body can then recognize and fight off if infected, these are not released when a person gets the shot.

The article also misleads in how it presents data from the US's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), claiming the database shows numerous fetal deaths linked to Covid-19 vaccination.

Health care providers are required to report any death that occurs following Covid-19 vaccination, even if there is no indication the shot was the cause. Additional investigation by the CDC and US Food and Drug Administration is required to definitively link any death to the jab.

The database website says: "VAERS reports alone cannot be used to determine if a vaccine caused or contributed to an adverse event or illness."

More of AFP's reporting on vaccine misinformation is available here.