MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Everyday, we learn more and more about COVID-19. There’s a huge push to reach heard immunity, but there is still some hesitancy when it comes to the vaccine.
When love strikes, it has a tendency to spread.
“My wife and I would like to have a baby,” said Timerra Thomas, a Shelby County resident.
Thomas will be starting IVF treatment soon.
“We’ve been planning for about a year. We had our first appointment in November,” said Thomas.
That is roughly when talks of COVID vaccines became reality and there was a big question. “Will the COVID vaccine affect fertility?”
“My concerns were that all of the doctors said different things. They all said, ‘Hey, we’re really not sure. As of yet, we don’t have any information. We don’t have a negative or a positive.’ They were just giving general things,” said Thomas.
“We get asked this question 10 times a day,” said Dr. William Kutteh, Managing Partner of Fertility Associates of Memphis. “When I got my vaccine, there was something from the CDC that I scanned. It’s called V-Safe.”
V-Safe is a database that allows vaccine recipients to update any symptoms or side effects.
“44,000 V-Safe participants indicated they were pregnant when they got their COVID vaccine or they got pregnant afterwards,” said Dr. Kutteh. “Of interests, there’s no difference in miscarriage, in still birth, in complications, in maternal ICU admissions, adverse birth outcomes that’s like birth defects, death, baby hospitalizations.”
Dr. Kutteh said various health organization have also agreed.
“We continue to recommend that the vaccine should be available to pregnant patients. We also want to assure patients there is no evidence that the vaccine can lead to loss of fertility,” said Dr. Kutteh. “If I have a patient who is electively going through treatment, there’s no official guideline that says wait a moment. In fact, they actually say go and get it. I’ve just been saying out of caution…just take it and wait a month.”
“I’m still a smidge nervous because with IVF, there so many other medications that you have to take,” said Thomas. “In that 44-thousand women, I’m wondering how many of them went through the IVF process?”
Dr. Kutteh said he can understand the concern because of how fast the vaccine was developed.
He recommends patients check with their physician to weigh their best option.