HPV Vaccine News 2017: Vaccination During Pregnancy Not Associated With Adverse Outcomes
The newest research on human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines reveals that there are no harmful effects when vaccination is administered during the early stages of pregnancy.
In the study recently published by the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers from the Statens Serum Institute in Copenhagen analyzed vaccination information and pregnancy outcomes of women from Denmark.
They compared data from 1,665 pregnant women who had exposure Merck's HPV vaccine, Gardasil, to 6,660 women who did not have exposure during pregnancy.
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Results revealed that HPV vaccination is not associated with higher risks of major birth defect, spontaneous abortion, preterm birth, low birth weight, small size for gestational age and stillbirth.
"Before our study, very little was known about the safety of HPV vaccination in pregnancy. The lesson is that for young women who are inadvertently vaccinated early in pregnancy there is no need to worry; our results do not support that this exposure has an adverse effect on the unborn baby," coauthor Dr. Anders Hviid told Reuters.
Research studies noted that it is still not advisable to administer HPV vaccines during pregnancy; however, there are no risks for women who receive vaccination and have yet to find out that they are pregnant.
It should also be noted that not all versions of the HPV vaccines were studied, so further analysis is still needed in order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of HPV vaccines' effect on pregnancy.
HPV vaccination is usually recommended for women aged 9 to 26, and it is said to significantly lower risk of developing cervical and other cancers.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are about 79 million Americans currently infected with some form of HPV and about 14 million people in the United States are infected with HPV each year. It has also been found to cause about 30,700 cancers in men and women annually.
