Covid vaccination during pregnancy did not affect neuropsychiatric development in children

A study by American scientists has shown that vaccination of the mother against covida during pregnancy is safe with regard to neuropsychiatric development of children up to 18 months. As reported in JAMA Pediatrics, the study involved more than four thousand children.

Although pregnancy was considered a high-risk factor for severe covida early in the pandemic, little is still known about the effects of coronavirus on the fetus. Equally problematic is the effect of covid vaccines on pregnancy, fetal and neonatal development. A major problem in studying these effects becomes the fact that pregnant women have not participated in the initial large-scale randomized clinical trials of covid vaccines. Therefore, relevant knowledge about the effects of vaccines in pregnancy is only now emerging.

Many women who are planning a pregnancy or are already pregnant have doubts about whether they should be vaccinated against covida. Mostly, women are concerned about the long-term risks to the fetus, especially with regard to neuropsychiatric development in children. And so far, there have been no studies that have examined the link between vaccination during pregnancy and neuropsychiatric developmental disorders in children.

So a team of scientists led by Eleni Jaswa of the University of California examined this effect in a prospective study involving pregnant women. The study cohorts included children for whom neuropsychiatric developmental data were available at 12 months (2,261 children) and 18 months (1,940 children).

The frequency of neuropsychiatric developmental disorders in children at 12 months was 30.6 percent in the vaccinated mothers' group and 28.2 percent in the unvaccinated group (p = 0.25). At 18 months, the incidence of impairment in the study group was 20.1 percent versus 23.2 percent (p = 0.13). After adjusting for baseline maternal age, race, ethnicity, education, family income, anxiety and gestational age, and the timing of when the vaccination was given, the researchers found no difference in the risk of neuropsychiatric developmental disorders between children at 12 and 18 months.

In the study's conclusions, the researchers recognize the covida vaccination during pregnancy as safe with respect to the child's later neuropsychiatric development. Although larger evaluations of the effects of covid vaccination in pregnant women are needed, the results of this study can already be used in counseling pregnant women.