Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci speaks during a White House press briefing, conducted by White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, at the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House January 21, 2021 in Washington, DC.
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There have been “no red flags” seen in the more than 10,000 pregnant women who have received Covid-19 vaccine shots so far, White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Wednesday.
Pregnant women and young children were excluded from the original U.S. clinical trials of the vaccines, as is typical in experimental vaccine research. That’s led to some concerns that there’s not enough data to be sure that the vaccines are safe among pregnant women, but Fauci said the Food and Drug Administration has not seen reason to worry yet.
“The FDA, as part of the typical follow up you have following the initial issuing of any [emergency use authorization] have found, thus far, and we’ve got to be careful, but thus far, no red flags about that, about pregnant women,” Fauci said Wednesday in an interview with The Journal of the American Medical Association’s Dr. Howard Bauchner.
Since the authorization of the Moderna and Pfizer–BioNTech vaccines in December, over 10,000 pregnant women, many of whom were health-care workers, have gotten the shots, Fauci said. He noted that there is evidence that a coronavirus infection can lead to heightened risk of an adverse outcome in pregnancy, which might be why many pregnant health-care workers decided to get the vaccine.
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