SEVERAL writers in these pages have raised doubts about the wisdom of administering the covid vaccines to pregnant women. The case has been made based on the potential harms to unborn babies, how the effects of covid in pregnancy are exaggerated and how safety claims about the vaccines are misleading.
Regardless, we carry on treating pregnant women like pin cushions in the UK, with NHS websites saying that ‘Covid-19 vaccines are strongly recommended in pregnancy’ and claiming that ‘vaccination is the best way to protect against the known risks of Covid-19 in pregnancy for both women and babies’.
In the United States, Secretary for Health and Human Services Robert F Kennedy Jr saw the dangers and halted covid vaccination for pregnant women.
While so often the butt of criticism in these pages, both Global Health NOW (GHN) and CIDRAP deserve credit for highlighting a study showing ‘No link between maternal COVID infection and birth defects’.
CIDRAP previously flagged up studies suggesting a link between covid infection and neonatal abnormalities and consistently pushed the standard covid and covid vaccine narrative for years. It would be fascinating to understand why both GHN and CIDRAP should flag up this recent study.
The data from the study were presented in JAMA Open in a study of ‘SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Rates of Neonatal Congenital Anomalies’. The study compared more than 5,000 births to mothers with laboratory confirmed covid with more than 20,000 births to mothers who did not have covid.
The key finding from the study is that ‘there was no association between maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection and neonatal congenital anomalies overall or by specific trimester of exposure’. More importantly, ‘adjusting for maternal socioeconomic variables and pre-pregnancy Covid-19 vaccination did not alter these findings’.
The covid vaccines have been implicated in adverse pregnancy outcomes, including a possible decline in birth rate correlating with levels of vaccination. However, there has never been particularly strong evidence that covid has caused congenital abnormalities and most attention has been on whether the covid vaccines themselves can lead to congenital abnormalities.
It will be interesting to see if this major study has any influence on advice regarding the administration of covid vaccines to pregnant women.
As readers of TCW are aware, the effects of covid in pregnancy, such as severe maternal illness, prematurity, stillbirth, ICU admission, maternal mortality and neonatal complications other than anomalies, are grossly exaggerated. Likewise, the efficacy of the covid vaccines. Simultaneously, the adverse effects of the covid vaccines in pregnancy are consistently underplayed.
If maternal covid infection is not associated with congenital abnormalities, then one of the pillars supporting mass covid vaccination in pregnancy becomes markedly less secure. Pregnant women have been pressured to be covid vaccinated for their own safety and, supposedly, for the safety of their unborn children. Yet this large study suggests that infection itself may not pose the congenital risks that have been implied. At the very least, public health authorities should now explain precisely what evidence remains for continuing to recommend covid vaccination during pregnancy, especially given continuing concerns over vaccine safety and efficacy.
