As false fears persist, new Israeli study finds COVID shots don’t harm IVF outcomes

Coronavirus vaccines do not harm in vitro fertilization success rates, giving new reassurance to couples battling infertility that immunizing won’t harm them, the authors of a new Israeli study told the Times of Israel on Thursday.

Chances of IVF pregnancy are also unaffected as a result of people catching COVID-19, the research found, in a conclusion that will be comforting to many after the sky-high Omicron infections in recent weeks.

Doctors found that there was no difference in pregnancy rates between IVF women they monitored who had received Pfizer coronavirus vaccines, and other women who hadn’t, or based on whether or not women had been infected.

They checked 428 women aged 38 or under, some of them vaccinated with Pfizer coronavirus shots and some not, between January 2021 and August 2021. In total, the women went through 672 embryo transfers.  Regardless of whether or not the women were vaccinated and unaffected by COVID infection, around a quarter of the transfers led to pregnancies.

There was “no difference in clinical outcome, reflecting no detrimental effect on previous infection or vaccination,” wrote a team led by Prof. Raoul Orvieto, director of the infertility and IVF institute at Sheba Medical Center, in peer-reviewed research, published recently in the journal Fertility and Sterility.

Various studies have refuted rumors that vaccines harm fertility, including a large analysis of Israeli sperm, but the claims persist.

Orvieto’s team believes that by illustrating that even women who face fertility problems aren’t negatively impacted by vaccines, it will reassure not only people undergoing IVF, but also those with general concerns about fertility who aren’t going through treatment, and who have been exposed to claims that vaccines caused infertility.

Orvieto told The Times of Israel: ”This study is the fourth we have conducted on the COVID vaccine’s impact on fertility and they all show the same thing: there is no discernible difference in fertility rates between those who have received a vaccine and those who haven’t.

“That appears to be a fact across the board, for both male and female fertility rates and for both natural pregnancies and IVF treatments. So far, there is nothing we have seen to suggest any negative impact on fertility at all. Many concerned women and mothers have approached us on this issue, and we’re providing research.”

His team wrote in the study: “Unfounded claims in popular media linked a possible correlation between the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine and potential infertility. Such false claims by anti-vaccine activists aim to incite fear and deter public opinion from vaccination, consequently jeopardizing the vaccination plan and the end of the pandemic.

“Our results refute such claims and strengthen the notion that the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine is safe and should be recommended to fertility-seeking couples. Future larger studies with longer follow-up will be needed to validate our observations.”

Orvieto commented: “Many concerned women and mothers have approached us on this issue. This groundbreaking study shows that the vaccine does not affect a woman’s chance of getting pregnant using fertility treatments.”