Can pregnant individuals get the COVID-19 vaccine?

The question of whether pregnant women should receive the COVID-19 vaccine is a rather basic one for Dr. Linda Eckert, an UW Medicine obstetrician and gynecologist and an infectious disease expert. The short answer is “likely, yes.” But she’ll quickly add some caveats to consider.

“If I were talking to my own patient, I’d be listening to that patient and trying to assess how she was feeling about the risk of acquiring COVID versus the concerns about the vaccine,” said Eckert. “But overall, especially if she had significant medical risk factors, I would be saying, I think this vaccine could be a really good idea for you because we absolutely know how dangerous COVID can be for pregnant individuals.”

If pregnant individuals catch COVID they will generally get sicker than non-pregnant individuals.
They also more commonly end up on ECMO [heart-lung support], in the ICU or on ventilators, she noted. According to the CDC, an estimated 300,000 of the health care workers in the United States are pregnant, and will be facing this benefit-risk analysis soon, if they have not already, she noted.