itemprop=description content=When women with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) plan to become pregnant, many anguish over whether to stop their medications, risking a flareup in their disease, or continue with medication and risk possible harm to the baby.
Reviewed by Danielle Ellis, B.Sc.Oct 6 2023 When women with rheumatoid arthritis plan to become pregnant, many anguish over whether to stop their medications, risking a flareup in their disease, or continue with medication and risk possible harm to the baby.
"When women with RA go through pregnancy, there often is a natural improvement," said lead study investigator Damini Jawaheer, research associate professor of medicine in rheumatology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "They describe it as 'a miracle.' They say 'I have never felt this good with any medication I have taken.' But the cause of this improvement is a complete mystery.
Jawaheer and her team found that, before pregnancy, a group of white blood cells called neutrophils were highly expressed among the women who improved during pregnancy, and some genes related to B cells were highly expressed among women who worsened. Next, Jawaheer plans to conduct a study in a larger cohort of women to validate these findings. Additionally, her lab is trying to figure out why RA improves during pregnancy.
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