False claims about miscarriage risk from Covid-19 vaccines are spreading online. They use a faulty interpretation of data

August 14, 2026 - 07:54

A wave of misleading posts on social media is once again pushing the narrative that Covid-19 vaccines cause miscarriages, a claim that has been repeatedly debunked by medical research. The new round of misinformation relies on a distorted interpretation of raw safety data, twisting numbers to fit a false conclusion. Public health experts say the tactic is familiar: take a small, unadjusted dataset, ignore the broader context, and present it as proof of harm.

The current spread has been amplified by Republican lawmakers and former Trump administration officials who have revived the talking point in recent weeks. Their statements cherry-pick figures from vaccine adverse event reporting systems, which are designed to collect any health issue after vaccination, not to prove causation. For example, a reported miscarriage after a shot does not mean the vaccine caused it. Miscarriages happen in roughly one in four recognized pregnancies, so some will occur by chance alone around the time of vaccination.

Large-scale studies involving hundreds of thousands of pregnant women have found no increased risk of miscarriage linked to the vaccines. The CDC, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the World Health Organization all recommend vaccination for pregnant individuals because the risks of severe Covid-19 far outweigh any theoretical vaccine concerns. Yet the false claims persist, often using a single flawed chart or an out-of-context quote to fuel doubt.

Doctors urge pregnant women to talk to their healthcare providers rather than rely on social media posts. The real danger, they say, is that misinformation leads to vaccine hesitancy, leaving expectant mothers unprotected against a virus that can cause serious complications, including preterm birth and intensive care admission. The evidence is clear, but the misinformation machine keeps churning.