The impact of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine on female fertility: a systematic review and meta-analysis

ABSTRACT

Objective. Most social media users express their fears about vaccine safe­ty as it is believed that SARS-CoV-2 vaccination may affect female repro­ductive health. The objective of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to evaluate whether WHO-approved SARS-CoV-2 vaccines can affect female fertility.
Materials and Methods. PubMed, ClinicalTrials.gov, the Cochrane Li­brary, and Google Scholar were systematically searched.
Results. In total, 7 clinical trials were included in systematic review and 6 were included in meta-analysis. Studies evaluated the impact of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine on female fertility. In the first meta-analysis, four studies were included and compared the antral follicle count between the vacci­nated and unvaccinated groups: MD = 0.12, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.76-1.01, p = 0.78. The second meta-analysis of two studies compared the AMH level between two groups: MD = 0.18, 95%CI 0.21-0.57, p = 0.37. The third meta-analysis of three studies compared the number of oocytes between the vaccinated and unvaccinated group: MD = 0.32, 95%CI 1.36-0.72, p = 0.55. The fourth meta-analysis of three studies compared the clinical pregnancy rate: RR = 0.89, 95%CI 0.76-1.03, p = 0.13.
Conclusions. Based on our systematic review and meta-analysis regard­ing fertility rates in vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 women and unvac­cinated ones, we can conclude that there is no statistically significant dif­ference in these two groups in terms of antral follicle count, AMH level, number of retrieved oocytes and clinical pregnancy rates.