Pregnant and had TB vaccination last week

[pringlebells]

Hi,

Had my BFP today.

I'm a student nurse and needed my TB vaccination (BCG) last week and the lady asked me if I was pregnant, to which I said no (clearly I had no idea) and she told me not to get pregnant for 3 months.

Here I am a week later pregnant.

I'm terrified and I can't find any information on the internet, I've had a miscarriage earlier this year and scared I've already severely harmed my baby.

I had the vaccination because I was also terrified of catching TB and with 2020 throwing hurdles at everyone the way it has, I wanted to be safe. Now I feel horrible.

Any advice please? (Please don't judge me I didn't know I was pregnant I can't feel worse than I already do)

Hi @pringlebells, try not to worry (easy for me to say, I know that!) - you did the best thing at the time with the available information.

The reason they advise not to get vaccines in pregnancy (including the covid vaccine or TB vaccine) is because research hasn't specifically tested it in pregnancy, not because they think it will have any negative effect. It would be unethical to recruit pregnant women to inject them with a vaccine, so basically vaccines are recommended as not for pregnancy until enough cases happen "in the wild" to show the effects, just like in your scenario. It would be the same if a vaccine wasn't tested in certain age groups, ethnicities etc, it can't get formal approval until the data is there.

So far it seems that there isn't any impact of the TB vaccine, but it is worth mentioning it to your midwife at your booking in appointment, so they can make a note of it. www.cdc.gov/tb/publications/factsheets/prevention/bcg.htm#:~:text=Pregnancy.,needed%20to%20prove%20its%20safety.

PS congratulations on your BFP!

Hi @pringlebells

I know this is an old post - but hopefully you see this.

I am in the exact same situation as you were right now. What did you do? Was the baby ok?

I am in full panic mode