Knocked Up

[miss_b]

My partner and I are starting to plan for pregnancy. I am a planner so it will be well in the future. I'm very excited about it but wondering about taking MS meds. I just switched to Gilenya (yay!) which I know I can't stay on while preggers. What I'm curious about is whether any of the other dmds are approved for pregnancy. I wouldn't be excited to go back on the needle but I'd do it if need be.

Also if anyone knows whether any of the dmds are approved for breast feeding as well, that would be great.

I love this forum for when I have this kind of slightly bizarre question.

[Keepin_on]

Well early congrats miss_b!

From what I have read and what my neuro has explained to me is that women taking any DMDs, including, beta interferon & Copaxone, are advised to discontinue them (usually 3 months) before trying to get pregnant and stopping contraception.

There have been cases where some women have continued to take DMDs during pregnancy and have had perfectly normal pregnancies and babies, but this is not recommended, some of the reasons are the fact that the interferons have been known increase the risk of miscarriage. There haven't been many studies (if any) to really test the risks with DMDs and pregnancy - I am assuming because that means they would need to test on pregnant women...which would not be very good.

DMDs can be re-started after you give birth and when you are no longer breast-feeding. This is the only thing my neuro really emphasized on - other than that she was super duper excited that I was thinking about kids.

The risk for relapse is lower (statistically speaking) during pregnancy but, the risk goes up after you give birth (e.g. during the breast feeding time). Also, women tend to feel much better with their MS when they are preggo so they are more hesitant to start back on their DMDs...but, we need to remember that is temporary

Virginia Mason has some good MS & pregnancy info:
https://www.virginiamason.org/workfi..._Pregnancy.pdf

Basically, I think the moral of this is - plan, plan, plan - plan for the best and worst scenario's when it comes to how your MS will behave. Plan for what you and your partner would do if you had a relapse during or after, etc. It may not happen, but at least you have some plans if it does.

I would also see if your neuro has anything else to add obviously

Congrats (early) again