The Bioethics Observatory of the Catholic University of Valencia offers Exaudi’s readers its article entitled “The Antibodies of Pregnant Women Vaccinated Against COVID-19 Can Pass to Their Children,” published last April 19, 2021.

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In a previous Report of ours, we made reference to the appropriateness of pregnant women being vaccinated or not. We concluded that, in general, North American gynecologists saw no special problem in them being vaccinated.

Instead, British gynecologists favored the idea that pregnant women wait to be vaccinated after the birth of their child, unless objective risk factors existed for their medical or social work, or if they were sufferers of a previous medical problem that could predispose them to COVID-19.

Published now in BMC Paediatrics is a new article on this subject, whose authors belong to several medical institutions of Boston. In this connection, as the group is North American, the authors see no problem in pregnant women being vaccinated, and they also prove that the vaccine produces antibodies, which can pass to the blood of the umbilical cord and to the fetus. Moreover, if the women nurse their children they can transfer antibodies in their milk to their babies.

131 vaccinated women were included in the study (84 pregnant, 31 nursing mothers and 16 not pregnant). The levels of antibodies against SARS-Cov-1 were evaluated in pregnant and nursing women. The evaluation was carried out 2 to 6 weeks after the second dose of the vaccine. The levels of antibodies in the umbilical cord were determined at the moment of birth.

The results show that the levels of antibodies are similar in pregnant, nursing, and not pregnant women. All the levels of antibodies were higher than those of pregnant women who had had COVID-19.

The authors concluded that the mRNA vaccine against COVID-19 induces a robust immune response in pregnant women, which they transmit to their children if they nurse them, and that this answer is better than that obtained from natural immunity. This data advocates the appropriateness of vaccinating pregnant women against COVID-19 with mRNA vaccines. (See more information here).

Bioethics Observatory

Institute of Life Sciences

Saint Vincent Martyr Catholic University of Valencia

Translation by Virginia M. Forrester