Side Effects of COVID-19 Vaccine on Menstruation

Non-menstruating people have reported menstrual symptoms associated with COVID-19 vaccine as per a survey from 160,000 respondents, at the Washington University in St. Louis, to be presented at the American Association for Anatomy annual meeting during the Experimental Biology (EB) 2022 meeting, in Philadelphia. Nearly one-third of the study respondents reported breakthrough bleeding after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, 9% reported chest or breast soreness and 46% reported having other symptoms they would usually associate with a period, such as cramping and bloating.

These findings draw attention to potential physical and mental side effects of vaccination in people with diverse gender identities such as transgender, nonbinary, or gender-fluid.

“It’s important to examine the impacts of COVID-19 vaccination on menstruation and breakthrough bleeding in people who are not cis women because they are too often left out of the discussion. I hope that this study adds to the increasing evidence that maybe we should include periods as part of vaccine research more broadly. Our findings also underscore the importance of including gender-diverse people when we study parts of biology that are closely linked with sex-based reproductive physiology like periods,” says Katharine Lee, PhD, a postdoctoral research scholar in the division of public health sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, first author of the study.

Source-Medindia