In deciding to use a medicine, the risks of taking the medicine must be weighed against the good it will do. This is a decision you and your doctor will make. Also tell your health care professional if you are allergic to any other substances, such as preservatives. Although adequate studies have not been done in either humans or animals, and problems have not been shown to occur, use of measles and rubella vaccine during pregnancy, or becoming pregnant within 3 months after receiving the measles and rubella vaccine, is not recommended. Because the natural measles infection has been shown to increase the chance of birth defects and other problems, it is thought that the live virus vaccine might cause similar problems.
Rubella vaccine crosses the placenta.
However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention monitored over 200 women who received the vaccine within 3 months before or after becoming pregnant, and those women gave birth to normal babies. However, this vaccine has not been reported to cause problems in nursing babies. Waiting until children are at least 12 months of age is important because antibodies that infants receive from their mothers before birth may interfere with the effectiveness of the vaccine. In addition, there may be special reasons why children between 6 months and 12 months of age also may require measles vaccination. Although certain medicines should not be used together at all, in other cases two different medicines may be used together even if an interaction might occur.