Congenital Anomalies After First-Trimester SARS-CoV-2 Infection or COVID-19 Immunization

Because women infected with SARS-CoV-2 during pregnancy have excess risk for both severe COVID-19 and pregnancy complications, immunizing pregnant women against COVID-19 is recommended widely. Postmarketing vaccine studies have shown no excess risk for pregnancy complications after immunization, but there's limited information about risk for congenital anomalies after infection with SARS-CoV-2 or vaccination against COVID-19 during the first trimester.

Using national birth registries, investigators identified 343,000 liveborn singleton infants in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark who were conceived between March 2020 and February 2022 and were followed for at least 9 months after birth. Rates of congenital anomalies among the 10,000 infants whose …