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More evidence that pregnancy

is safe with multiple sclerosis

Reuters 08/04/2011
By Amy Norton
A review of studies strengthens the evidence that women with multiple sclerosis (MS) have the same opportunity as other healthy pregnancies and without putting your health at risk.

The findings, published in BJOG, supports the general advice that if the disease is controlled, patients may become pregnant. "A woman with MS may think about getting pregnant as the rest," said Yara D. Fragoso, a neurologist at Universidad Metropolitana Santos, Brazil, and lead author of the study.

MS is a nerve disorder that appear when the immune system mistakenly attacks nerve fibers. Symptoms include muscle weakness, numbness, vision problems and difficulty coordinating movement and balance.

Fragoso team met 22 international studies from the 1980 on a total of over 13,000 women. By combining the results found that crises were not so common symptoms during pregnancy and increased slightly for a time after birth.

But during pregnancy, and in the 12 months before and after, the rate of appearance of symptoms (relapse) never exceeded one per year. Relapses of MS increase for several months after delivery. But that does not increase the future risk of developing disability.

The team found that women with MS had higher risks than their peers to miscarriage, premature delivery, having a baby with low birth weight or having a baby with a congenital malformation.

For example, among countries, rates of preterm birth varied between 9 and 11 of every 100 live births, as in the general population.

Fragoso told Reuters Health in an e-mail that MS would have "a negative effect on pregnancy and / or the baby or the pregnancy would adversely affect the course of the disease in future."

is important that women with MS talk with their doctor when they want to become pregnant because it may need to stop the drug. The disease-modifying drugs are not approved for use in pregnancy and studies suggest that, at least interferon beta, would be associated with spontaneous abortion.
During pregnancy, the neurologist and obstetrician should work together, said Fragoso.

SOURCE: BJOG, online March 15, 2011.