Should You Get The COVID-19 Vaccine While Trying To Conceive?

What are your questions about the coronavirus vaccine?

Ideastream Public Media's health team is answering as many questions as possible, with help from local experts in a range of fields. You can  send us your questions with our online form, through our social media  group, or call us at 216-916-6476. We'll  keep the answers coming on our website and on the air.

Garfield Heights resident Kenneth said, "My daughter will not get the (COVID-19 vaccination) shot because she and her husband want to conceive." Kenneth asked Ideastream's health team to find out if getting the vaccine will impact his daughter while she is trying to get pregnant. His daughter received some information that it could affect fertility. "My understanding was that it has no impact on that. ... Can you find out which it is?" he asked.

There is no evidence that the COVID-19 vaccine affects male or female fertility, said Dr. Bryan Hecht, director of reproductive endocrinology at MetroHealth.

“Because COVID is potentially a very dangerous disease and potentially more dangerous during pregnancy, fertility specialists recommend that women who are attempting to conceive be vaccinated," he said. 

University Hospitals Pediatric Infectious Disease specialist Dr. Amy Edwards isn't surprised by this misinformation. 

"It's actually a fairly common anti-vaccine trope to say that vaccines can affect fertility," Edwards said. 

But the science behind anti-vaxxer's argument is flawed, she said. She's heard people claiming that the spike protein in the vaccine will attack a placenta, but Edwards said if that was true, the antibodies produced after becoming infected with COVID-19 would also cause infertility, which it doesn't.

"There are plenty of people who have recovered from COVID and had children," she said. "There's also clinical evidence, there's a number of people who have gotten pregnant since getting vaccinated. There is no impact on fertility."

All of the research and evidence that Hecht has seen leads him to also strongly recommend the vaccine for all his patients.

"Given the totality of information, and it's certainly growing readily and quickly over time, there's no evidence that women or men attempting to conceive should not be vaccinated, and there's compelling evidence why they should be," he said. 

Edwards said getting the COVID-19 vaccine is the pregnant woman's decision, but she wants them to have all the information before making that decision. 

"What we do know, 100 percent, is that pregnant women who get COVID are at high risk for worse outcomes, both for them and for the baby," Edwards said. "Most importantly, we know it can cause pre-term delivery, intra-uterine fetal demise."

She said many pregnant women have recovered after contracting COVID-19, but being pregnant does increase risk, so she hopes people planning to become pregnant consider that when making their decision.