Covid-19 vaccines may have PREVENTED thousands of premature births

Covid vaccines may have prevented thousands of premature births, a new study suggests.

Despite widespread misinformation that vaccines cause fertility problems, researchers in California linked the shots to a 78 percent decrease in premature births among expectant mothers who were infected with the virus.

They analyzed data on millions of births registered in the state between 2014 and 2022 and found an increase in premature births in 2020, when the virus was first spreading in the United States.

The study attributed this to Covid infections in pregnant women, which increase the risk of preterm birth due to inflammation and stress from an infection.

But by 2022, the premature birth rate had fallen back to pre-pandemic levels, following the rollout of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.

The injections are believed to have primed the mother’s immune system to recognize and attack the virus in the early stages of infection, dramatically reducing the risk of serious illness.

Expectant mothers who were infected with Covid had at least a 60 percent higher risk of having a premature birth (or giving birth to a child before 37 weeks of gestation) in the early stages of the pandemic compared to those who were not infected, according to studies. suggest.

Expectant mothers are more vulnerable to serious infections because their immune systems are weaker during pregnancy.

Scientists suggest that Covid also increases the risk of preterm birth because it could trigger a “cytokine storm.”

This is an overreaction of the immune system that causes the body to attack healthy tissue.

About one in ten children in the U.S. are born prematurely, or before 37 weeks of gestation, surveys suggest.

In many cases, young people suffer no ill effects. But those born prematurely are at greater risk of complications, such as infections, asthma and developmental delays.

The researchers analyzed data from California because the state had recorded on birth certificates whether pregnant women had been infected with Covid since June 2020.

Mothers were tested for the virus before being admitted to one of the state’s 400 hospitals or birthing centers, whenever possible.

In California, an average of 400,000 births occur each year, which is equivalent to many countries, and allows the results to be generalized throughout the world.

The results showed that the risk of a premature birth for a mother increased by 78 percent for people infected with Covid in the year 2020 (or increased from 6.9 to 12.3 percent of all premature births).

The rate of increase changed again by 4.1 percent in 2021 with the emergence of the more serious Delta variant.

But it had fallen back to pre-pandemic levels in 2022, following the major vaccine rollout, rising infections and the emergence of the milder Omicron variant.

In areas where vaccine acceptance was higher, scientists found that premature births in Covid-infected mothers decreased a year earlier than in those areas with low acceptance.

California began rolling out the Covid vaccine on December 14, 2020, and in July 2021, also began administering the shots to pregnant women.

By December 2022, 84 percent of California residents had received at least one dose of the vaccine.

Jenna Nobles, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who led the research, said: “In ZIP codes with the highest vaccination rates, the excess risk of preterm birth declines much faster.”

‘As of summer 2021, having Covid during pregnancy had no effect on the risk of preterm birth in these communities.

‘It takes almost another year for that to happen in ZIP codes with lower vaccine uptake.

‘That highlights how protective the Covid vaccines have been. By building immunity more quickly, early vaccination likely prevented thousands of premature births in the United States.”

The vaccines triggered immunity against the virus by priming the immune system to fight the infection and prevent serious illness.

But infections early in the pandemic probably also helped, scientists said, because they also taught younger women’s immune systems how to fight the virus.