In a study of couples trying to get pregnant, they found no link between COVID-19 vaccination and the chance of having a baby in women or men who had the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, or Johnson & Johnson vaccines.
Amelia Wesselink, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the School of Public Health and the study’s lead author, says that many people who are reproductive-age have said that they don’t get vaccinated because they don’t want to hurt their fertility. Pregnant people in the United States are still not getting vaccinated, even though new research shows that not getting vaccinated increases the chances of having a miscarriage or having a baby die in the first month of life. People who want to have a baby through intercourse don’t need to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
Regardless of whether they had been vaccinated, the time to pregnancy was very similar.
From December 2020 to September 2021, 2,126 women living in the United States and Canada took part in the study. They answered questions about their socioeconomic status, lifestyle, medical conditions, and the characteristics of their partners. People in the study were kept up to date through November 2021. Fertility rates for women who got at least one dose of a vaccine were the same as for women who didn’t get a vaccine.
They were also the same for male partners who had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, compared to unvaccinated male partners. Additional studies that looked at the number of vaccine doses, brand of vaccine, infertility history, occupation, and geographic region also found that vaccination did not have an effect on fertility. COVID-19 was not a strong link between fertility and COVID-19 infection, but men who had COVID-19 within 60 days of a given cycle had less fertility than men who never had COVID-19 or men who had COVID-19 at least 60 days before. People who have COVID-19 infection are more likely to have bad sperm quality and other problems with their reproductive system.
These findings are good news for couples who are trying to get pregnant, says Lauren Wise, a professor of epidemiology at the School of Public Health and a senior author on the study. COVID vaccination in either partner does not affect fertility in couples trying to get pregnant, she says. Wise’s advice for people who want to start a family is to get a vaccine. Her research shows that there is no link between vaccination and bad pregnancy outcomes.
