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Your Healthy Family: New study shows no link between COVID-19 vaccines and infertility

Posted at 7:29 AM, Jan 27, 2022
and last updated 2022-03-15 12:43:05-04

A new study is adding to more evidence there's no connection between COVID-19 vaccines and infertility.

Health experts have been saying for the last year that vaccination, and now boosters, provide the best protection against COVID-19.

"Most of the patients we take care of — if not all of the patients we take care of in the ICU — are unvaccinated, which is really frustrating," Dr. Paul Offit, a member of the FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee, said.

Only about a quarter of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated and boosted. Top U.S. health officials have said vaccine misinformation puts lives in danger — including the false idea COVID-19 vaccines affect fertility.

"There has been no evidence that there's any adverse effect on childbearing from having the vaccine," Dr. Tom Frieden, a former CDC Director, said.

He said a new study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology provides more proof vaccines don't impair fertility. The research shows couples in the study had slightly lower chances of conception if the male had been infected with the Coronavirus within 60 days. More research is needed to find out why, but doctors said fever — a common COVID-19 symptom — is known to reduce sperm count. Health experts said the virus's effect on male infertility in the short term is even more reason to get vaccinated.

"There's increasingly strong evidence that getting COVID in pregnancy is bad for the child and bad for the mother, so vaccination is extremely important," Dr. Frieden said.

These findings add to the evidence from studies on animals, people undergoing fertility treatment, and COVID-19 vaccine trials that there's no association between COVID-19 vaccination and lower fertility. Researchers also said several studies show no association between COVID-19 vaccines and miscarriage risk, either.