According to new research, women with SLE are at the highest risk for adverse pregnancy outcomes during a lupus flare. The data may enable clinicians to use risk stratification and tailored monitoring to counsel SLE patients who are pregnant or considering pregnancy. Researchers also found that maternal age, lupus nephritis and antiphospholipid antibodies may affect pregnancy outcomes…
Recent research indicates that previous concerns about mortality associated with pregnancy in women with SLE may no longer be applicable. In the study, researchers found a significant decline in the in-hospital maternal mortality rate of women with SLE and a decrease in their length of non-delivery related hospitalization over the past two decades…
Pregnant women with inflammatory arthritis may have an increased risk for preterm delivery. New research examined the risk of preterm delivery and other pregnancy complications in women with RA and JIA vs. healthy controls…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Pregnancy outcomes in women with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) have improved markedly over the past two decades, although pregnancy risks remain higher than in women without lupus, according to a trends analysis. “Thirty years ago, most women with SLE were advised to avoid pregnancy because of high risks for maternal and fetal…
New data from India suggest women with idiopathic inflammatory myositis are at increased risk of poor fetal outcomes and spontaneous abortions. In the study, researchers found these women had worse obstetric outcomes and increased risk of fetal complications…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—About 15% of women who develop carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) while pregnant will suffer persistent and worsening symptoms long after delivery, a new study suggests. “Conventional medical wisdom has been that gestational carpal tunnel syndrome simply goes away after pregnancy, and for many women this is true. However, in our practice this…
BALTIMORE—Understanding issues regarding pregnancy in women with rheumatic disease is important to patients and physicians alike, said Bonnie Bermas, MD, the Dr. Morris Ziff Distinguished Professor in Rheumatology at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, in her recent lecture at the Maryland Society for the Rheumatic Diseases.The physiologic changes in normal pregnancy, which include increased circulating…
Vinet et al. evaluated the risk of serious infections in children of women with RA exposed to TNFi’s in the gestational period compared with unexposed offspring of women with RA, as well as with children from the general population. Although the research did not demonstrate a marked excess risk for serious infections, the authors could not exclude a differential risk according to specific TNFi, with infliximab potentially resulting in a threefold increase in the risk of serious infections compared with other TNFi’s. More studies are needed…
AMSTERDAM—Clinicians who are counseling women with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) have the benefit of an array of new insights into factors linked with increased risk of pregnancy loss, how SLE therapies affect pregnancy and data on outcomes of children born to mothers with SLE, an expert said in a session at EULAR: the Annual European…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—New registry data should help reassure women with Crohn’s disease (CD) who need to continue infliximab during pregnancy that it won’t harm their baby. “The clinical condition of infants born to women with gestational infliximab exposure was similar to those without exposure,” the study team reports online July 19 in the American…