Does juxtaposing pregnancy with MS make you uncomfortable? It shouldn’t. Many women experience normal pregnancy with multiple sclerosis, then go on to have normal deliveries and healthy babies. Whatever dangers MS poses to adult women, they seem to be suppressed by the experience of pregnancy. Thus, having children is often within reach for women living with multiple sclerosis.
For women thinking about combining pregnancy with MS, the knowledge that this is possible will come as a relief. They should take the time to find out more about the practicalities of combining parenthood and pregnancy with multiple sclerosis. At the end of the day, even if carrying a baby to full-term does not pose a risk to their already compromised health, being a parent is a huge responsibility. It brings with it drastic life changes. The parent becomes responsible for raising another human being to maturity, and this is a full-time job that costs money, time and energy. It is the sort of thing that a parent suffering from MS would want to go into with eyes wide open.
The Practicalities of Combining Pregnancy with MS
An MS patient looking to get pregnant should talk to her doctor about her intentions. This is because some of the drugs that MS patients take to manage their symptoms, slow down the disease, and improve their quality of life are suspected to be potentially harmful to developing fetuses. Since there is no way to predict when one is going to conceive, it is best to first get weaned off the riskiest medications. Then, when the doctor declares it safe to start, patients can try to get pregnant. If this process works smoothly, then the women will get pregnant when relatively drug free, and this will minimize any risk that the babies they carry may be adversely affected by the said drugs.
Pregnancy not only increases the levels of particular hormones in a woman’s body, but it also increases the bodily levels of natural steroids. Both of these factors are conducive to the suppression of autoimmunity and inflammation. As a result of them, most or all of the symptoms of multiple sclerosis are suppressed in pregnant women. In this way, pregnancy provides female MS patients with welcome relief from their condition. At the same time, pregnancy comes with its own inconveniences, risks and problems. Thus, pregnant women with MS are not home free. They still face the same risks of developing complicated and abnormal pregnancies as women without MS.
