COVID-19 Boosters Are Now Recommended for All Eligible Pregnant People
Dr. Erica Hardy, an infectious disease physician at Rhode Island’s Women & Infants Hospital, adds that booster shots appear just as safe as the original shots, according to the research that exists so far. “Doing something feels more risky, whereasdoing something doesn’t feel as immediately risky,” she says. “But the risk of COVID is quite severe.”
Like the general public, pregnant individuals can receive any booster shot, regardless of which vaccine they initially received, according to ACOG’s guidance. There are not yet strong data to say which combination is best, but Jamieson notes that a very small number of women haveafter getting the Johnson & Johnson shot. “It is something that pregnant persons may want to think about,” she says.
A booster’s primary purpose is to prevent severe disease and keep both parent and baby out of the hospital—but an extra vaccine dose may pass additional antibodies along to the newborn, too. Based on studies from the first round of COVID-19 vaccination, experts know that “vaccination in the third trimester seems to be really good at boosting … antibodies both in the mother and in cord blood, and then in breast milk,” Adhikari says.
Jamieson says pregnant individuals shouldn’t worry too much about timing their booster to maximize the number of antibodies they pass on. Instead, she says it’s smart to get a booster as soon as possible, to minimize the damage of a potential COVID-19 exposure. While getting boosted later in pregnancy may offer “subtle differences in antibody transfer to the fetus,” Jamieson says, “they’re not outweighed by the overall risks of being sick with COVID when you’re pregnant.”
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