--- title: Why I Decided to Get the COVID-19 Vaccine While Pregnant description: Charlotte Alter writes about the surprising hesitation she felt about getting vaccinated against COVID-19 while pregnant--and why she ultimately decided to get the shots. canonical: https://time.com/6094069/covid-19-vaccine-pregnant-hesitancy/ author: Charlotte Alter article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2021-09-01T12:00:22.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-14T09:14:41.633Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Why I Decided to Get the COVID-19 Vaccine While Pregnant og:description: I was surprised at myself for hesitating. I'm not an anti-vaxxer. og:url: https://time.com/6094069/covid-19-vaccine-pregnant-hesitancy/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbcce27f89a2198f6/698a1c668fd2ee0106362d9b/pregnancy-vaccination-covid19-vaxxed.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2400 og:image:height: 1350 og:image:alt: Doctor giving COVID -19 coronavirus vaccine injection to pregnant woman. Doctor Wearing Blue Gloves Vaccinating Young Pregnant Woman In Clinic. People vaccination concept. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why I Decided to Get the COVID-19 Vaccine While Pregnant twitter:description: I was surprised at myself for hesitating. I'm not an anti-vaxxer. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbcce27f89a2198f6/698a1c668fd2ee0106362d9b/pregnancy-vaccination-covid19-vaxxed.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # I Was Nervous About Getting the COVID-19 Vaccine While Pregnant. Here's What Convinced Me to Do It > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME Newsletters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME publishes seven free email newsletters, written and edited by TIME journalists, reaching more than 1.1 million engaged readers. TIME has reported on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world since 1923, and its newsletters bring that same authority directly to the inbox. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=bb16c1c8-cc40-4c52-9c75-7cc4230a2cdf&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Making the COVID-19 Vaccine: A 50,000 step process [Watch (HLS stream): Making the COVID-19 Vaccine: A 50,000 step process](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/XGIqdw9j.m3u8) (7:28)  _Published 2021-04-18. Inside BioNTech's quest to vaccinate the world_  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Sep 1, 2021 12:00 PM UTC  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Sep 1, 2021 12:00 PM UTC In March, when President Biden announced that COVID-19 vaccines would soon be available to all Americans, my husband and I decided to press pause on the whole maybe-getting-pregnant-soon thing. We would get our vaccines first, have a Hot Vaxxed Summer full of booze and parties, and then go back to the kids question once we had shaken off the COVID cobwebs. Lucky for us, it was too late: it turned out I was already pregnant. I was thrilled, but also anxious. I had been all-in on [getting the vaccine](https://time.com/collection/coronavirus-vaccines-updates/); getting it while pregnant was a different story. At the time, the CDC had not yet issued a full-throated recommendation that pregnant women should get the vaccine: pregnant women were eligible, and the research suggested it was safe and effective, but the agency was essentially saying “it’s up to you,” urging women to talk to their health care providers about it. And my doctor wasn’t exactly pushing me one way or the other: her exact words when I asked her advice in April were “sure, if you want!” **_Read More:_**[_These Moms Work as Doctors and Scientists. But They’ve Also Taken On Another Job: Fighting COVID-19 Misinformation Online_](https://time.com/5947557/covid-19-vaccine-misinformation-moms/) None of this was particularly reassuring. On the one hand, it made me anxious that pregnant women had been [excluded from the early clinical](https://www.npr.org/2020/12/11/945196602/pregnant-people-havent-been-part-of-vaccine-trials-should-they-get-the-vaccine) trials of the vaccine. I also thought I was low-risk for contracting COVID-19: I’d already had it the year before, and it was easy to socially distance while working from home. On the other hand, I knew that reinfection does happen, and contracting COVID-19 while pregnant is extremely dangerous. According to the CDC, pregnant women with COVID-19 are more [prone to serious illness, ](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/special-populations/pregnancy-data-on-covid-19/what-cdc-is-doing.html)which can lead to dangerous complications for mothers and babies, including [preterm birth](https://time.com/5906483/covid-19-preterm-birth/) and other adverse pregnancy outcomes. And there’s at least [some evidence](https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/03/21/vaccine-pregnancy-antibodies-babies-covid/) the vaccination during pregnancy could lead to some protection for the baby. Yet many pregnant women are still reluctant to take the vaccine: [by late August, ](https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations-pregnant-women)only about 1 in 4 pregnant women in the U.S. had received at least one dose. That reluctance is dangerous, but I understand it. In those confusing months in the early stages of my pregnancy and the beginning of the vaccine rollout, I hesitated. I was surprised at myself. I am not an anti-vaxxer: I have gotten every childhood vaccine ever offered to me, and I plan to fully vaccinate my own daughter when she’s born. I do not believe the bogus vaccine conspiracy theories that circulate on certain corners of the internet. Part of the reason I believe so strongly in vaccines is that children have been vaccinated against polio, measles, mumps, etc., for generations, and so far, so good. It was this faith in the tried-and-true nature of older, more familiar, vaccines that made me nervous about taking the COVID-19 one while pregnant. What if there were unforeseen effects down the line? What if, for example, I got the vaccine and our daughter developed birth defects as a result? My brain started speeding in irrational directions, despite the fact that the data show no heightened risk of birth defects from the vaccine. So I did the only thing I knew how to do: I called people who were smarter than me. My first call was to my good friend, a health reporter and editor who has covered COVID-19 extensively. She said that all of the studies showed that the vaccines were safe and effective for pregnant women, and that there was nothing concerning showing up in the research. She sent me links from researchers she trusted, explaining that while pregnant women weren’t in the early vaccine trials, pregnant health care workers had received the vaccine, seen no adverse effects, and passed at least some immunity onto their babies. Her verdict: get the vaccine. Next, I called my uncle, a doctor. He worked in public hospitals in the Bay Area for decades and pioneered the field of social emergency medicine, but he’s also the guy that everyone in my family calls if we have a weird rash. He said that the vaccine doesn’t even get close to the baby: it mostly [stays near the site of the injection](https://www.nebraskamed.com/COVID/where-mrna-vaccines-and-spike-proteins-go), in the arm, and then flushes out of your system in a couple of days. He also said that pregnant women get all sorts of vaccines all the time, and he couldn’t think of a single instance where a vaccine had ever been proven to cause problems with a pregnancy or negatively affect the baby. His recommendation: get the vaccine. **_Read More:_**[_Pediatric COVID-19 Cases Are Surging, Pushing Hospitals—and Health Care Workers—to Their Breaking Points_](https://time.com/6092446/pediatric-covid-19-surge/) Then I called my mother’s oldest friend, a doctor who specializes in obstetric ultrasound. I asked her: How can they be 100% sure that this won’t cause a problem for the baby? “The researchers keep saying, ‘We see no evidence that it causes birth defects,’” I said, “But is that the same as ‘we have evidence that it doesn’t’?” She explained that it was impossible to prove a negative: absence of evidence, for scientific researchers, is as close as they get to evidence of absence. I wanted to see a study that said “we have proof this won’t happen,” but she explained that’s not how the scientific process works. When researchers say that they have no evidence of adverse effects, she explained, it’s the strongest language they have to rule something out. Still, she suggested that I wait until the end of the first trimester, purely for my own peace of mind: most miscarriages and birth defects happen in the first trimester, she explained, and she didn’t want me to blame a naturally occurring miscarriage on my vaccination. Her take: wait a couple of weeks, but get the vaccine. Ultimately, even though the CDC had not yet announced its recommendation that all pregnant women get vaccinated ([it didn’t do that until August](https://time.com/6089572/cdc-pregnant-women-covid-19-vaccine/)), I got my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine in May, in the final week of my first trimester, and the second dose a few weeks later. On the day I got the shot, I was more anxious than I thought I’d be. But then I remembered that the smartest people I knew said that if they were in my position, they would get vaccinated. I realized that my brain was torn between my irrational fears, rooted in science-fiction paranoia, and the rational advice of trusted, experienced medical professionals and health experts whose suggestions were rooted in research conducted by some of the world’s most knowledgeable scientists. I chose the science. **_Read More:_**[_How ‘America’s Frontline Doctors’ Sold Access to Bogus COVID-19 Treatments—and Left Patients in the Lurch_](https://time.com/6092368/americas-frontline-doctors-covid-19-misinformation/) Since then, my pregnancy has been without complications, and my baby seems healthy so far. I have been able to visit my 87-year-old grandmother and show her my baby bump. I’ve been able to see vaccinated friends and family. I’ve even been exposed to COVID-19 at least once, but have not been infected. When the CDC updated their guidance to encourage more pregnant women to get vaccinated, I was relieved–hopefully, this makes the decision less stressful for other women. It wasn’t an easy decision. But every day since I got that first shot, I’ve been secure in the knowledge that getting vaccinated during my pregnancy was the right choice, for me and for my baby. ## Transcript Kind: captions Language: en oh yes yes i'm vaccinated yes Very cool yes yeah yes, I did it was very cool to to know okay I'm gonna be vaccinated with a vaccine that I know really from day one I mean who can tell that they're part of the solution for such a pandemic situation I guess only a few people can say that and I'm really happy to be part of that If you've been vaccinated for COVID-19, chances are that you are benefiting from the science happening here at the German biotech company BioNtech. In December 2020 BioNtech in partnership with Pfizer were the first to earn authorization to distribute their vaccine to the public In March 2021 TIME spent a week watching how BioNtech makes a batch of 8 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine at their new manufacturing plant in Marburg they expect to produce 1 billion doses a year the pace of production has been breakneck from the start So in 2020 I think we worked at every holiday, I can remember Easter Saturday I was standing here pipetting samples to have the results as soon as possible and now 24-hour shifts in this lab are producing vaccines that will be shipped around the world There are approximately 50, 000 steps at the lab it begins with bags of pure mRNA the molecule that tells cells how to make the proteins that launch the immune response and a buffer solution that starts the coding process it emerges in bulk at the other end of the process as a liquid destined for vials most of the machines are named after the engineers that developed the process this one is named after Margaret the first patient in the clinical trials to receive the vaccine but the beating heart of the lab is this machine a container that uses pressurized ethanol to encase the mRNA and special lipid nanoparticles those nanoparticles keep the mRNA protected until it can jumpstart the immune response in the body's cells Speed is essential but inside the lab everyone moves slowly and methodically each of the 50,000 steps is logged by one technician confirmed by a second and only then does it actually happen it's very important that the quality of the product and all the raw materials is perfect here and so no impurities should be present in all raw materials and nothing which we don't want to have in our products one wrong move has the potential to damage the final product if there's any accidental exposure let's say from an ill-timed sneeze the entire batch must be thrown out, all eight million doses that's why everyone wears layers of protection and they even disinfect their gloved hands repeatedly in the lab where we were filming no one had ever told the technicians how many doses were in a batch after that they sprayed another application of disinfectant onto their gloves just to be sure based on our technology and on the antigen we were using no I wasn't I'm very confident in the technology we have until now vaccine development has been a slow process the BioNtech vaccine uses a new technology based on mRNA it is revolutionizing the way vaccines can be produced When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, BioNtech was primarily a cancer vaccine company but by using this new mRNA technology it was able to quickly pivot to a coronavirus vaccine when you look back at any project you've ever done you've always looked back at the start and go wow okay if I'd known that now i could have cut you know a few hurdles out of my way earlier right but you're in a situation where you're doing something especially for us as a smaller company that was unprecedented the second part of the process happens at another factory where vials are filled and packed into boxes for shipment as the cycle comes to an end there's little time to celebrate after all another batch is waiting to be made ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6094069/covid-19-vaccine-pregnant-hesitancy/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6094069/covid-19-vaccine-pregnant-hesitancy/"},"headline":"I Was Nervous About Getting the COVID-19 Vaccine While Pregnant. 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