Although the benefits of vaccination against Covid-19 are now clearly established, many people remain skeptical and refuse to be vaccinated against infection with the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.
This opposition is (unfortunately) fueled by hyper-popular fake news circulating on social networks. The latest one is terrifying: she claims that “scientific studies” To “demonstrated“that vaccination against Covid-19 greatly increases the risk of miscarriage during pregnancy. Thus, according to the” antivax “,”82% of women who were less than 20 weeks pregnant had a miscarriage“after being vaccinated.
At the origin of this fake news, there is indeed a scientific study: it was carried out by American researchers and published in the New England Journal of Medicine in April 2021. The researchers worked with a group of 3,958 pregnant women: they were followed at the time of their vaccination and then 3 months later.
A distorted statistic, obtained by manipulation of data
Results ? Scientists first note that among these 3,958 women, 712 gave birth to healthy infants, 104 had miscarriages, 1 gave birth to a stillborn child, and 10 cases of abortion and pregnancy. ectopic pregnancies have been reported; the remaining 3,100 women were still pregnant 3 months after vaccination.
Mathematically, the study therefore concludes that 12.6% of the 827 terminated pregnancies were due to a miscarriage. Nothing to worry about since the average miscarriage rate is around 15%.
Yes, but here it is: to get a more impressive figure, opponents of vaccination excluded from their calculation pregnant women vaccinated during their third trimester of pregnancy – a period when the risk of miscarriage is significantly lower. Out of 827 miscarriages, they therefore retained 127 to obtain a rate of 82%. Much more impressive.
To date, vaccination against Covid-19 is open to pregnant women from the first trimester of pregnancy. The vaccines used are messenger RNA vaccines (Pfizer / BioNtech or Moderna). American researchers clearly state that their “preliminary results do not show clear red flags among pregnant people who received messenger RNA anti-Covid vaccines“. Reassuring.
Read also :
- Pregnancy at risk: age, advice, follow-up
- Covid vaccine: pregnant women can be vaccinated from the 1st trimester
- Tocophobia or fear of giving birth
