Can you get the Covid vaccine if you’re pregnant?

2 December 2020, 11:32

Should pregnant women get the Covid vaccine? Picture: Getty Images/PA Images

Will pregnant women get the Covid vaccine in the UK? Here's what the government guidelines state...

The UK has become the first country in the world to approve the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the first 800,000 doses will be available in the UK from early December.

But with ‘vulnerable people’ top of the list, many expectant mums are wondering whether pregnant women can get the Covid vaccine. Here’s what we know so far…

Can you get the Covid vaccine if you’re pregnant?

The official government guidelines set out advice to healthcare practitioners on the first vaccines expected to become available in the UK and how they should be administered.

The Covid vaccine has been given the go-ahead in the UK. Picture: PA Images

Currently, the instructions - published by Public Health England - state that the available data ‘does not indicate any safety concern or harm to pregnancy’.

But it also adds there is ‘insufficient evidence’ to recommend routine use of COVID-19 vaccines during pregnancy, which means the vaccination should be given to women after they give birth.

The guidance adds: “Pregnant women at high risk (including health care workers) should be offered a vaccine as soon as possible after completion of pregnancy.”

If a woman finds out she is pregnant after she has started a course of vaccine, the advice says that she should “complete her pregnancy before finishing the recommended schedule”.

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Experts from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, have also said data specifically for pregnant women won’t emerge until next year.

Leaders of the Pregnancy Research Ethics for Vaccines, Epidemics, and New Technologies (PREVENT), Ruth Karron, Ruth Faden, and Carleigh Krubiner said: "When the very first vaccine becomes available, it is unlikely that there will be evidence yet from trials including pregnant women.

"And even if we have some insights from women who become pregnant in the large efficacy trials, it’s still unlikely that pregnant women will be among the first to get the vaccine."

They continued: "Another factor to consider: By early 2021, we’ll have more data on the coronavirus’s effects in pregnancy."

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