This Just In
Chemotherapy During Pregnancy Might Not Harm Your Baby After All
Getting a cancer diagnosis while you're pregnant has got to be one of the most painful experiences I can imagine. Weighing treatment options and the risks to one's own child while trying to preserve your own life has got to be excruciating.
Because it's long been believed that chemotherapy is harmful to a fetus, some pregnant women choose to abort their pregnancies, while others choose to put off chemotherapy to protect their unborn children and give up their own lives in the process. No matter the decision, there is much agony and fear involved.
A recently released study will hopefully make the decisions a little easier as it found that chemotherapy during pregnancy is safe for babies.
According to ABC, the new study looked at 400 women in Europe who underwent chemotherapy while pregnant, and it found "little to no evidence of negative health effects" to the babies from the chemo. The found while they weighed less than babies who weren't exposed to chemo , they did not show a higher risk for birth defects, blood disorders, or hair loss.
More from The Stir: 21 Conflicting Pregnancy Health Guidelines to Make You Absolutely Crazy
It's as shocking as it is amazing in some respects. When something like drinking wine is said to do all sorts of damage (depending on which study you choose), it's incredible that something as powerful as chemotherapy wouldn't do any damage. But what amazing news for the thousands of women who are diagnosed with cancer while they're pregnant.
While this study isn't a guarantee that chemo won't ever harm a child, it does come on the heels of another study from earlier this year with similar findings. Professor Sibylle Loibl, of the German Breast Group which directed the research, said:
If our findings are confirmed by other studies, breast cancer during pregnancy could be treated as it is in non-pregnant women without putting fetal and maternal outcomes at substantially increased risk.
While it's hard to call this good news -- because there's nothing good about having cancer while pregnant -- for those 1 in every 1,000 women who do, it's certainly a bright spot.
Are you surprised to learn that chemotherapy may not cause complications for an unborn child?
Image via one tiny spark/Flickr
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Danielle Rhodes-Curtright
If it harms you, it harms your baby. Simple as that.
081109
Heather Duso Johnson
If you read the linked article, it's not like it's extra safe. And these were woman with breast cancer, they didn't even say which kind, so this was a very specific kind of chemo, not all of them. Plus there is another link in the article The Stir linked and the woman interviewed did a more aggressive and toxic chemo AFTER the birth of her babies. So yeah it's not exactly as hopeful as this leads you to believe.
Jeremmy
Chemo doesnt heal, it kills. Hopefully for those with cancer, it kills the cancer before it kills them. There is absolutely no way that it can be considered 'safe' to the baby.
Mary Williams Montgomery
DritaF
Joann
mamivon2
I guess it depends..
Rachel
Krayzemama
I was diagnosed with breast cancer during my 14th week of pregnancy with my 4th child. I was 24 years old and had breast fed all of my children so it was a huge shock. We told my dr's right up front that we would NOT be aborting the pregnancy, and I would do whatever it took to deliver my baby safely. I had six rounds of chemotherapy starting at around 18 weeks til I delivered her at 34 weeks. She was perfect, healthy, weighed 4lbs 14oz and had hair! It absolutely is possible and there is a website that I found when I was first diagnosed called "Hopefortwo.com" that really helped me decide to go ahead with chemo during my pregnancy. The thing about chemo is there are thousands of different types, and while one kind could absolutely be devistating to a baby in utero, another type could do literally nothing!