Pregnancy study ‘reassuring’ for women with MS

CBC News: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 | 6:12 PM ET

Pregnant women with multiple sclerosis are at slightly higher risk for some pregnancy complications but are no more likely to have other problems compared with other women, a new U.S. study suggests.

Researchers used a national database on 18.8 million deliveries in the U.S. between 2003 and 2006 to compare newborns born to women with MS and 10,000 other women.

Women with MS were slightly more likely to have caesarean deliveries (42 per cent) compared with 33 per cent in the general population, Dr. Eliza Chakravarty of Stanford University School of Medicine and her colleagues reported in Wednesday’s online issue of the journal Neurology.

“These results are reassuring for women with MS,” Chakravarty said in release.

“Women and their doctors have been uncertain about the effect of MS on pregnancy, and some women have chosen to delay or even avoid pregnancy due to the uncertainty. We found that women with MS did not have an increased risk of most pregnancy complications.”

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