Pregnant women can be vaccinated against covid as early as “first trimester“of pregnancy. This is what Minister of Health Olivier Véran assured on July 20, during the questioning session to the government at the National Assembly.

No observed risk

Until this declaration, the covid vaccine was not recommended for women in early pregnancy, due to a lack of data. But no particular risk was observed in those who had nevertheless received a dose of the vaccine during the first three months of pregnancy, especially when they did not yet know they were pregnant.

From the second trimester on the other hand, the anti-covid vaccine was already strongly recommended to pregnant women since the beginning of March 2021 in France.

Read also: Covid: what are the risks during pregnancy?

Only three medical contraindications

But when is the messenger RNA covid vaccine, like Pfizer and Moderna, contraindicated? Only three situations, “which potentially concern a few hundred French ” give rise to an exemption.

• The first is “PIMS syndrome”, or pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome, a complication “extremely rare“which has affected some children and adolescents following an infection by the coronavirus, explained Olivier Véran.
• The second concerns “reactions like myocarditis, pericarditis and severe hepatitis requiring hospitalization and following a first injection of messenger RNA vaccine“, continued the minister.
• The third concerns people who are allergic to one of the components of the vaccine, PEG2000, or polyethylene glycol, a situation which “must concern about 10 cases in our country“, he finally assured.

No exemption without a medical certificate

In short, neither pregnancy, “nor a history of allergy to an antibiotic or a bee sting“do not constitute contraindications to vaccination,” the minister concluded.

“It is therefore on this basis that proper medical certificates can be recognized as contraindications and not on a simple medical or pharmaceutical opinion with an allergic history.“, he insisted.

Only these medical certificates – but not simple opinions – will be able to serve as an exemption for people who will soon be subject to compulsory vaccination, in particular caregivers.

To date, 56% of French people have received at least one dose of anti-covid vaccine and 46%, or 30,837,893 people, have a complete vaccination schedule.