Can Women With Lupus Have a Healthy Pregnancy?
One big question with women is can they suffer from lupus and still have children. The answer is not a simple one, but it most definitely is a yes. A woman with lupus can safely get pregnant and have a healthy baby, but it requires some careful planning to ensure not only the health of the baby, but the continued health of the mother. To begin with she should not consider getting pregnant before the disease has been in remission for at least a year. If the disease is not in remission, which is the best option, then it should at least be under control.
The next step is to locate an obstetrician who specializes in high risk pregnancies. She should make sure the hospital that she will deliver at is able to deal with high risk pregnancies. If not shopping around is a good idea. This is her life and the life of her unborn child that she will be dealing with and she must make sure everything is exactly right for when she delivers. When first sitting down with the obstetrician it is important to discuss medications and what is safe to take during the pregnancy. Certain medications are very bad for the health and development of the baby.
There are some things a women with lupus will have to face that will make her pregnancy high risk, but that does not mean the infant will be not be born healthy. Her lupus condition may flare during the pregnancy. This in itself is not a big problem but the timing of it and the need to take medication might be. Usually the flare-ups occur during the first or second trimesters. There are the periods of time when the baby is most at risk since it does its most developing during these times. As long as these reoccurrences are mild a treatment in small doses of the medications necessary should do no harm to the infant.
The bigger worry is that sometimes women with lupus may develop preeclampsia. This is a condition where there is too much protein in the urine and the woman’s blood pressure is dangerously high. The only cure for this dangerous problem is to deliver the baby early.
The health care provider will monitor the women closely during her pregnancy. Regular sonograms will be taken. A sonogram is a machine that can take a picture of the baby inside and see if it is developing as expected. If the women must deliver early the obstetrician will be ready and because of close monitoring and the sonograms will have a good amount of knowledge on the development of the baby before the birth. The woman with lupus has every bit the chance of having a healthy baby as any other women.
The baby will have a three percent chance of developing neonatal lupus. This should not be a worry since although they will be born with a rash and perhaps a little liver difficulty the symptoms should disappear in a few months.
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