Pregnancy in Scleroderma

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Pregnancy in systemic sclerosis may be uneventful with good maternal and fetal outcomes. Scleroderma is a multisystem disease and complications do occur; however, careful antenatal evaluations, discussion of potential problems, and participation in a high-risk obstetric monitoring program are important to optimize the best outcome. Women who have diffuse scleroderma are at a greater risk for developing serious cardiopulmonary and renal problems early in the disease so they should be encouraged to delay pregnancy until the disease stabilizes. All patients who become pregnant during this high-risk time should be monitored extremely carefully, particularly for renal crisis.

Section snippets

Pregnancy in systemic sclerosis

Systemic sclerosis is a connective tissue disease that occurs in women three to five times more frequently than men. The interrelationships of scleroderma and pregnancy have been important in both the effects of scleroderma on pregnancy and the effects of pregnancy on scleroderma. With the mean age of onset of scleroderma symptoms in the early 40s, almost half of the women who have this illness have the potential of becoming pregnant after the onset of their illness. Until recently, most women

Summary

Pregnancy in systemic sclerosis may be uneventful with good maternal and fetal outcomes. Scleroderma is a multisystem disease and complications do occur, and thus careful antenatal evaluations, discussion of potential problems, and participation in a high-risk obstetric monitoring program are important to optimize the best outcome. Women who have diffuse scleroderma are at a greater risk for developing serious cardiopulmonary and renal problems early in the disease so they should be encouraged

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