Monitoring the safety of COVID-19 vaccination in pregnancy in the UK: A national study using the UK Obstetric Surveillance System (UKOSS), UK Teratology Information Service (UKTIS) and Vaccination in Pregnancy (VIP) safety monitoring systems

Background: COVID-19 vaccines are protective against disease. Pregnant women benefit from vaccination as they are at higher risk of poor maternal and neonatal outcomes following infection. Methods: Following regulatory approval of two COVID-19 vaccines in the United Kingdom, a rapid national study of vaccination in pregnancy was instituted using three existing safety surveillance platforms: UKOSS, UKTIS and VIP. This preliminary report describes the data collected up to the 15(th) June 2021. Results: There were 971 reports of COVID-19 vaccination in the UKOSS/UKTIS (n = 493) and VIP (n = 478) monitoring systems describing 908 individual pregnancies. Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccination was most common (n = 501, 55.2%), most women were vaccinated in their second or third trimester (n = 566, 62.3%), and were mainly vaccinated due to occupational infection risk (n = 577, 63.5%). Conclusion: Obstetric outcome data will be obtained by December 2021. However, women should not delay vaccination whilst awaiting further safety data to emerge.

Automated summary

This article discusses a national study on the vaccination of pregnant women with COVID-19 vaccines and presents preliminary data collected up to June 15, 2021. The results show that the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine is the most common, with most women being vaccinated in their second or third trimester mainly due to occupational infection risk.