Background: Although at any time in the UK, there are about 20,000 women with MS who may be considering having children, healthcare systems often fail to provide them with information and support they need to make informed decisions about their health and pregnancy management.
Method: Interviews were conducted with women with MS (n = 9). Transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis.
Results: Three major themes emerged from the interviews with women living with MS. We found women were concerned about both medical and practical issues associated with having children. Limited access to information about relationships between MS and childbearing and receiving conflicting or wrong information was recounted. Opinions of family members and clinicians regarding having children in the context of MS impacted on women’s experience of making decision about having children and childbearing.
Conclusions: Women with MS can benefit from having access to comprehensive, structured sources of information about MS and childbearing. Healthcare professionals and family members’ support could be channelled more appropriately to enhance their experience of making choices about childbearing.
Other posts on pregnancy and MS on this blog:
Wasn't there a time when women with MS were advised not to have kids? Why was that?In fact, 20 years ago, according to my physio, MSers were advised not to excercise because it was feared it would make the MS worse.How can such modes of thinking turn 180 degrees within a generation? What if the advice given now for some things for MS survival turns out to be completely wrong in a decade?
Very true. Saw a video of an MSer in a wheelchair. He says he wishes that when he got MS he hadn't chosen to go on DMTs and had followed a regime of excercise instead. He said he reckons he wouldn't have ended up in a wheelchair so early had he kept more active.At the end of the day neurologists are as much in the dark as we are. How can you fix something when you don't know why it's happening.
Exercise and DMTs are complementary. Exercise can't replace a DMT. Even normal people need to exercise. It is not wise to assume exercise is a cure or treatment for MS. There is no class 1 or 2 evidence to support the latter.
Well science and knowledge moves on! We now have DMTs and think we can modify the course of MS for the better. Neurologists have also become less paternalistic; very few would make such sweeping statements. One reason this blog exists is to show you how rapidly knowledge is evolving and how attitudes have changed or are changing.
"he hadn't chosen to go on DMTs and had followed a regime of excercise instead." Why either/or? Surely he could have exercised and taken his DMT…