Technologies

COVID raises risk of stillbirth, new research finds. What to know about vaccines during pregnancy

Here’s what we know about COVID-19 boosters, fertility and more.

For the most up-to-date news and information about the coronavirus pandemic, visit the WHO and CDC websites.

In September, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended «urgent action» be taken to get pregnant people, and those who want to be pregnant in the future, vaccinated against COVID-19. The alert was issued after mounting evidence demonstrated how COVID-19 affected the outcomes of pregnancy and the overall health of the pregnant person. As of mid-September, only 31% of pregnant people were vaccinated against COVID-19 — a much lower rate than the general US adult population — but they had a 70% increased risk of dying from symptomatic COVID-19 compared to people who weren’t pregnant.

Now, research is showing that pregnant people with COVID-19 have a higher risk of their baby being stillborn, according to a November report by the CDC. While the overall rate of stillbirths was low from March 2020 to September 2021, people who had COVID-19 during their delivery had a 1.26% chance of stillbirth, compared to people without COVID-19 at .64% — roughly double the risk. This risk was even higher, the CDC said, during the months the delta variant was circulating.

The CDC, along with other organizations that serve pregnant people such as the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine have all issued recommendations that pregnant people get vaccinated against COVID-19. This is because research available during the pandemic shows that COVID-19 vaccines are safe for pregnant people, breastfeeding parents and people who may consider pregnancy in the future.

The World Health Organization says COVID-19 vaccines approved by the WHO (which include Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson) can be taken by people who are on their period (menstruating), pregnant, planning to get pregnant and breastfeeding.

But advice for pregnant people trying to make decisions about vaccines hasn’t always been so strong. Pregnant people are often left out of medical studies, so when vaccines initially became available to protect against COVID-19, those who were pregnant were absent from the early studies on coronavirus shots. While the COVID-19 pandemic has shone some light on pregnant and breastfeeding people’s age-old status as «vulnerable,» the lack of data collected about pregnancy in the clinical trials of all three of the vaccines available in the US may have left you sifting through conflicting advice on how best to protect you and your child. As new data emerges and illustrates how pregnancy increases risk of COVID-19 disease for parents, which also puts their child at risk, here’s what we know about COVID-19 vaccines and boosters in pregnancy.

I’m pregnant. Should I get the COVID-19 vaccine?

The CDC made its official recommendation in August that, yes, pregnant people, breastfeeding people and those who want to be pregnant in the future should get a COVID-19 vaccine. The ACOG and SMFM also recommended COVID vaccines for pregnant people at the end of July after reports from «tens of thousands» demonstrated the safety of COVID-19 vaccines in pregnancy.

Other vaccines are recommended or offered during pregnancy. Some vaccines, for other diseases, aren’t recommended for pregnant people because they contain (very small amounts) of a live virus. None of the coronavirus vaccines available in the US use a live virus.

Do I need a booster if I’m fully vaccinated and pregnant?

Boosters are authorized for all adults in the US, including pregnant people (as long as you’re 18 years or older). You may get a shot at least six months after your second Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, or at least two months after your Johnson & Johnson shot, according to CDC guidance. You can get any COVID-19 vaccine available in the US as a booster if you prefer to switch brands for any reason.

The CDC guidance for the general adult population leaves the decision on whether to boost up to the individual. However, pregnant people were actually eligible for boosters before the general public because pregnancy, or being recently pregnant, makes someone more susceptible to severe COVID-19. The ACOG, which gives guidance to pregnant individuals and their providers, recommends boosters for people who are fully vaccinated and pregnant or up to six weeks postpartum. The SMFM also recommends boosters for pregnant individuals at least six months after their second shot (or two months after, for people who received Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine).

What are the side effects of the vaccine for pregnant people?

Preliminary data on about 35,000 pregnant people who were vaccinated and volunteered information through the V-safe program shows that pregnant people have the same vaccine side effects as nonpregnant people — temporary injection pain in the arm, fatigue, headache, muscle aches and fever.

However, it’s important to note that fever from any cause has been associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes, and the CDC recommends pregnant people who experience fever after vaccination take acetaminophen to lower their body temperature.

Why are pregnant people at a high risk of COVID-19?

In May, CNET talked to Dr. Ella Speichinger, an OB-GYN at University of Missouri Health Care. She said it isn’t exactly known why pregnant people are at a higher risk, but that it may be because pregnant people’s immune systems are naturally depressed so their bodies don’t reject the growing fetus, or because pregnancy could alter the body’s way of mounting an immune response to COVID-19.

«I’ve had many patients who have had COVID while they were pregnant, and they’ve been just fine,» she said. «But there have definitely been severe cases where patients had to get delivered early because they could no longer oxygenate their fetus.»

In these cases, Speichinger said the patients usually improved after giving birth, but that it was delayed. It’s also impossible to know who will have a bad reaction to COVID-19 while pregnant.

«It’s really unclear who of the healthy pregnant cohorts is going to be the one that gets sick,» she said.

I’m skeptical of the vaccine. What are the risks of getting COVID-19 while pregnant?

Pregnant and recently pregnant people are at higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19, including death, according to the CDC, and they’re also at increased risk for preterm delivery (birth before 37 weeks) and other adverse pregnancy outcomes including stillbirth. Other health factors of the pregnant person, including a high BMI, diabetes or heart conditions, may elevate this risk, according to the SMFM.

Although there is information available now about how risky COVID-19 can be for pregnant people, that wasn’t necessarily the case at the beginning of the pandemic, and pregnant people were not highlighted specifically as «high risk.» Speichinger said that is likely because people who get pregnant are usually generally healthy and under age 40.

During what trimester should I get the vaccine?

Scientists who looked at people who got vaccinated earlier than 20 weeks pregnant didn’t find an increased risk of miscarriage compared to those who didn’t, according to a report from the V-safe pregnancy registry. Earlier data that was available reflected vaccination during the later stages of pregnancy.

Some people holding out on getting vaccinated during the first trimester may be due to the naturally high rate of miscarriage in the first three months, and patients being more cautious because of that. About 10% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage, according to the ACOG, but the risk also increases with age. About 80% of miscarriages happen in the first trimester.

«Most people feel concerned in the first trimester because there’s such a high risk of miscarriage in general,» Speichinger said. «Conflating the miscarriage with vaccine administration is what leads to vaccine hesitancy in the first trimester.»

Research shows that parents vaccinated during the third trimester of pregnancy may pass antibodies onto their newborns.

What if I’m breastfeeding?

«If a woman is uncomfortable doing it while pregnant, I absolutely think getting it while she’s breastfeeding is a good idea,» Speichinger said. «Because all of those antibodies can then cross through to the milk and protect baby while the mom is still producing those antibodies.»

There’s not enough data to show how long that protection lasts, but the CDC reports that breastfeeding people who have received an mRNA vaccine produce COVID-19 antibodies in their breast milk. In a small study on lactating health care workers who received a mRNA vaccine while breastfeeding, researchers from the University of Florida found that their breast milk had a «significant» amount of antibodies.

In its latest report, the CDC made a strong recommendation that breastfeeding people and those who were recently pregnant get a COVID-19 vaccine.

Does the vaccine type matter?

Moderna and Pfizer’s are mRNA vaccines, which use a new technology that delivers instructions to our immune systems on how to make protective proteins. Johnson & Johnson’s, the third vaccine available for emergency use in the US, uses viral vector technology by delivering a harmless virus into our bodies that triggers an immune response. Viral vector vaccines, notably the Ebola vaccine, have been studied in pregnant and breastfeeding people with no adverse effects found, according to the CDC.

The early research available now shows that mRNA vaccines are safe for pregnant women, and that miscarriage rates among women who received a COVID-19 vaccine are similar to miscarriage rates of women who didn’t get vaccinated. In a V-safe survey of 827 pregnant women who got a COVID-19 vaccine, about 14% experienced pregnancy loss — within the range that is naturally expected.

After the Food and Drug Administration lifted the pause that had been placed on Johnson & Johnson after reports of blood clots (the CDC identified 28 cases out of 8.7 million people vaccinated with Johnson & Johnson, the majority of them in women), the CDC issued a statement that women under age 50 should be aware of their increased risk of this still rare, but serious form of blood clots, and consider the other vaccines that don’t carry this risk. Given the demographic of the blood-clotting risk, Speichinger said her bias would steer her pregnant patients toward a Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.

«I still think the risk is exceedingly rare compared to the complications of COVID,» she said. «But if you had a choice, I would pick one of the other two.»

I want to be pregnant in the future. Will the COVID-19 vaccine make me infertile?

The fear people have regarding their fertility and vaccination isn’t exclusive to the COVID-19 vaccine. The specific fear about infertility and COVID-19 vaccines stems from a now-debunked post on Facebook that claimed the vaccine would make pregnant people’s bodies attack a protein needed for placenta formation in early pregnancy, because, it asserted, the spike protein in the COVID-19 vaccine is «similar.» Experts have disproved this, saying that not only do the two proteins have «almost nothing in common,» but even if they did, infection with COVID-19 would have the same outcome. There is no research to suggest people who have had COVID-19 will have a more difficult time getting pregnant, and many have since the beginning of the pandemic. If you’d like more information about COVID-19 vaccines and pregnancy, Dr. Danielle Jones, an OB-GYN who is also known as «Mama Doctor Jones» on TikTok, shared this video on YouTube debunking myths about COVID-19 vaccines and infertility, miscarriage and pregnancy.

The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.

Technologies

Lemon8 and TikTok Could Be Banned. Here’s How the Apps Are Different

TikTok and Lemon8 are owned by the same parent company, but they offer different experiences.

TikTok faces another sale deadline Saturday, and unless a US buyer intervenes — or President Donald Trump extends the deadline again — the app could disappear for US users. If the ban goes into effect, TikTok wouldn’t be the only app to disappear: TikTok’s sister app, Lemon8, could be caught in the crossfire.

Read more: A VPN Alone Probably Won’t Bypass TikTok Bans. Here’s Why

Lemon8 is owned by ByteDance, the same parent company that owns TikTok. It’s one of the top Lifestyle apps in Apple’s App Store, and it has more than 10 million downloads in the Google Play store.

«Lemon8 is a lifestyle community focused app powered by TikTok, where you can discover and share authentic content on a variety of topics such as beauty, fashion, travel, food, and more,» the app’s description reads in both stores.

Here’s what you need to know about Lemon8.

Note: I reached out to ByteDance for this story, and the company did not respond for comment.

What is Lemon8?

Lemon8 is a video- and photo-sharing platform that eschews the vertical-scrolling format of TikTok in favor of a Pinterest board-style format. But what Lemon8 and TikTok do have in common is that both have Following and For You tabs to show you posts from creators you follow and posts the app thinks you will like.

Lemon8’s content is split into six topic tabs, plus a seventh tab called All. The other tabs are Fashion, Beauty, Food, Wellness, Travel and Home. These tabs can be found across the top of your screen, and tapping into these tabs shows you recommended and suggested posts.

Posts can be swipeable photo collections like in Instagram, or TikTok-style videos. Some creators add text to their photos to label clothing or a product. Some will also include the price of the item in the text.

How is Lemon8 different from TikTok and other apps?

Lemon8 is different from other apps in terms of what is posted and how it’s presented.

Lemon8 has a lot of influencer ads and product recommendations. It’s difficult to tell what is and isn’t sponsored content, and this appears to be the norm across the app. TikTok also has sponsored content, but usually these are marked as such in the bottom-left corner.

There aren’t a lot of memes or jokes on Lemon8 compared to other apps, either. You can find memes on Lemon8, but various hashtags associated with «memes,» like «funnymemes» and «catmemes,» have fewer than 1 million views (as opposed to hundreds of millions on Instagram). This could be because Lemon8 is still catching on in the US, but my suspicion is Lemon8 isn’t meant for memes. It’s meant to be more of a guidebook to help you achieve a certain lifestyle or aesthetic.

There’s also a lot of writing in Lemon8. For example, post captions might include instructions for a recipe or a deeper breakdown of an outfit. TikTok captions can have useful information, but those captions are more about connecting posts to hashtags to get more views and don’t necessarily add new information to the TikTok post. Lemon8 uses captions in a similar way to Instagram posts, but Lemon8 captions have one key difference from Instagram: templates.

Lemon8 lets you use templates for your posts to help you quickly format and to give you an idea of what to caption your post. There are caption templates for fashion, shopping finds, beauty, food and travel.

Lemon8 reminds me of a mashup between the magazines Martha Stewart Living, Muscle & Fitness and Travel + Leisure. You can find some useful tips in Lemon8 to help you achieve a desired aesthetic or find some vacation inspiration, but it’s not clear what is and isn’t an ad.

What are people saying about Lemon8?

People’s reaction to Lemon8 is seemingly positive so far. One TikTok creator posted a video calling Lemon8 «Pinterest, but interactive.» Another said Lemon8 is a combination of Pinterest, Instagram and TikTok.

However, this positivity could be artificially inflated. ZDNet reports that many TikTok posts about Lemon8 have described the app with similar language, making some believe ByteDance paid these creators.

And some Lemon8 creators’ claims make this theory sound more viable. One Lemon8 creator told Insider that ByteDance paid them to post on the app. Two other Lemon8 creators showed Insider emails that outlined the app’s payment structure.

Who owns Lemon8?

ByteDance, the Chinese tech company that owns TikTok, also owns Lemon8. According to ZDNet, ByteDance is positioning Lemon8 to be an Instagram rival as more users stop using, or abandon, Meta’s app.

According to the Wall Street Journal, a leaked internal memo from Meta showed that Instagram engagement was declining. ByteDance executives could be hoping to capitalize on this by giving Instagram users an alternative app in the form of Lemon8. And while Lemon8 was released globally in 2020, the app’s recent growth might show ByteDance’s gamble is paying off.

Will Lemon8 be banned alongside TikTok?

Since Lemon8 is owned by ByteDance, which also owns TikTok, it’s possible that the app will be banned alongside TikTok on April 5.

The law requiring the sale of TikTok could be applied generally to other apps that are owned and operated by ByteDance and its subsidiaries. When TikTok shutdown operations in the US in January, Lemon8 was shutdown alongside the app. If TikTok shuts down again, Lemon8 likely will as well.

Should you download Lemon8?

Even with a shutdown looming, Lemon8 is free, so you can download and try the app now before the sale deadline. Just know the app’s posts resemble instructional guides more than memes to share, and many posts feel like advertisements.

What’s Lemon8’s privacy policy?

Most of Lemon8’s privacy policy seems standard for social media apps. It states Lemon8 collects personal and location information to provide you with a better app experience. Some collected information includes your IP address and browsing history. But part of the app’s privacy policy might raise eyebrows.

«The personal information we collect from you may be stored on a server located outside of the country where you live,» the policy reads. The company has servers around the world, according to the policy, so your information could be stored in any of them.

This is different from how Lemon8’s sister app TikTok stores some user’s data. The company stores US-based user data in Oracle servers. TikTok CEO Shou Chew said ByteDance employees in China can access this data, but with «robust cybersecurity controls and authorization approval» overseen by a US-based security team.

For more on the TikTok ban, here’s what to know about the Supreme Court’s decision, here’s what could happen next and here are other apps users are flocking to.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for April 4, #193

Three of the four categories are especially tough today. Here are hints and the answers, for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, No. 193, for April 4.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

I only solved one of the four categories for today’s Connections: Sports Edition on my own, so if you need help, you’re not alone.

The yellow category was pretty simple, but after that I couldn’t make any connections. It might help if you know a lot about a certain NBA player’s resume. Read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That’s a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but now appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can continue to play it free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Do better.

Green group hint: March Madness.

Blue group hint: Six-time all-star.

Purple group hint: Think Wimbledon.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Not meeting expectations.

Green group: Teams in the Women’s Final Four.

Blue group: Teams Kawhi Leonard has played for.

Purple group: Ends in a piece of tennis equipment.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is not meeting expectations. The four answers are bust, disappointment, dud and failure.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is teams in the Women’s Final Four. The four answers are Bruins, Gamecocks, Huskies and Longhorns.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is teams Kawhi Leonard has played for. The four answers are Aztecs, Clippers, Raptors and Spurs.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is ends in a piece of tennis equipment. The four answers are bracket, eyeball, horseshoes and internet.

Quick tips for Connections: Sports Edition

#1: Don’t grab for the easiest group. For each word, think about other sports categories it might fit in – is this a word that can be used in football, or to describe scoring options?

#2: Second meanings are important. The puzzle loves to use last names and even college names that mean other things, to fool you into thinking they are words, not names.

#3: And the opposite is also true. Words like HURTS might seem like a regular word, but it’s also the last name of at least one pro athlete.

Technologies

Skip Your iPhone’s Lockscreen: Here’s the Hidden Flashlight Trick You Need to Know

A couple of taps can really make a difference on your iPhone.

Not long ago, your iPhone’s lockscreen would only allow two app shortcuts that you couldn’t change: camera controls and a flashlight toggle. However, iOS 18.2 allows you to customize these shortcuts to almost anything you might want. This small but impactful change is one of many ways iOS 18 supercharges customization for iPhone and iPad users. But what if you still want an easy-to-access way to toggle your flashlight without unlocking your phone?

Apple introduced an accessibility feature in iOS 14 that, once enabled, allows you to perform actions by just tapping on the back of your phone. The feature is called Tap Back and it remains a sleeper feature that’s sneakily hidden away in your settings menu. Enabling Tap Back essentially allows you to create a button on the back of your iPhone to perform an action without needing to take up any space.

Once you have Tap Back enabled, it doesn’t take long to see how much of a game-changer it can be with its added convenience. Below, we’ll show you how to set it up so a couple of taps on the back of your iPhone will let you launch just about anything you want.

For more, check out what’s in the latest iOS 18.4 release.

How to set up Back Tap on iPhone

Whether you want to link Back Tap with your flashlight, camera or launch a different iPhone app, the path through your iPhone settings begins the same way.

On your compatible iPhone (iPhone 8 or later), launch the Settings application and go to Accessibility > Touch > Back Tap. Now you have the option to launch your action (in this case, your flashlight) with either two or three taps. Although two taps is obviously faster, I would suggest three taps because if you fidget with your phone, it’s easy to accidentally trigger the accessibility feature.

Once you choose a tap option, select the Flashlight option — or a different action if you prefer. You’ll see over 30 options to choose from, including system options like Siri or taking a screenshot, to accessibility-specific functions like opening a magnifier or turning on real-time live captions. You can also set up Back Tap to open the Control Center, go back home, mute your audio, turn the volume up and down and run any shortcuts you’ve downloaded or created.

You’ll know you’ve successfully selected your choice when a blue checkmark appears to the right of the action. You could actually set up two shortcuts this way — one that’s triggered by two taps and one that’s triggered by three taps to the iPhone’s back cover.

Once you exit the Settings application, you can try out the newly enabled Back Tap feature by tapping the back of your iPhone — in my case, to turn on the flashlight. To turn off the flashlight, you can tap on the back of your iPhone as well, but you can also just turn it off from your lock screen if that’s easier.

For more great iPhone tips, here’s how to keep your iPhone screen from dimming all the time and canceling all those subscriptions you don’t want or need.