The need to know facts about pregnancy and your thyroid – What your doctor did not explain
Posted on February 28, 2016 by Dr. G
Having a baby, thinking about having a baby, or just recently had a baby?
Here are some things for you to consider…
If you or your immediate family member have a known current thyroid condition, history of a thyroid condition, or you are having symptoms that are usually considered hypothyroid symptoms but your blood work is normal; I would like you you consider a few things that can prevent health problems or help you resolve health problems.
Thyroid symptoms are many and varied because every cell in your body has requirements for thyroid hormone and therefore symptoms can be present in every system of the body. Below are some common symptoms often associated with thyroid health:
- Feeling tired
- Unable to stand cold temperatures
- Hoarse voice
- Swelling of the face
- Weight gain
- Constipation
- Skin and hair changes, including eyebrows
- Carpal tunnel syndrome (hand tingling or pain)
- Slow heart rate
- Muscle cramps
- Trouble concentrating
- Irregular menstrual periods
You may notice that these are also symptoms associated with many conditions and many of these symptoms of being in your 1st trimester of pregnancy. Thyroid health does not have to only include a confirmed diagnosis of “hypothyroidism” (a condition where your thyroid under produces its hormone). thyroid health issues can be present even if the thyroid is functioning fine. I know it sounds crazy, but I will explain.
Once the thyroid hormone is produced and released into your circulation, it must go through several important steps before it can perform its duties in the nucleus of every cell in your body. Normal thyroid gland function, with abnormal thyroid hormone “physiology” can result in hypothyroid symptoms and risks and your thyroid function test, performed by your doctor, can be normal, resulting in unnecessary risks to mother and child.
Hypothyroid function in any form can increase the risk of complications associated with pregnancy:
- Infertility
- Anemia
- Pre-eclampsia,
- Miscarriage
- Postpartum hemorrhage
- Premature delivery
- Placental abruption,
- Low birth weight and
- Intellectual Deficit
Women are 8 times more likely to have thyroid problems than men. With all of this being known, it is still not an official part of the screening process associated with pregnancy. I believe the reasons are based on a cost to benefit analysis made by government agencies and large corporations. That’s about as far as I will go in this post into politics of healthcare, I don’t think I need to say anything more. With that being said if most people knew how inexpensive it is to have a “comprehensive” thyroid panel performed, they would gladly pay for it themselves. Cost to benefit analysis performed by a health insurance company or government agency is a very different calculation than one performed for yourself.
I have a very large percentage of patients who present to me with thyroid symptoms and disorders and one of the most common statements that are made is “everything was fine, until I had my child, then it all started to fall apart” The rest of this post will explore the reasons why. Knowing this can save your life in more ways than one. “Save my life; really?” Yes. If you have been told that all you have to do is take a pill to normalize your blood levels and everything will be fine, you are being terribly misled. Spend a few hours exploring the support groups online of people who are being “properly” treated with synthetic thyroid hormone replacement, whose blood levels are “normal” and read what they have to say about their lives.
90% of all cases of hypothyroid symptoms in the USA are due to autoimmune disease or when the immune system attacks the thyroid gland. This can be called hashimoto’s and graves disease. Graves is much less common and hashimoto’s disease makes up the overwhelming majority. The reason the immune system becomes dysregulated has a lot to do with our dramatically increased exposure to immune challenges in our environment. These include food sources that are not genetically appropriate in quantity and quality, food additives, preservatives and other aspects of industrialised farming, chemical exposure in the home we are unaware of, what should be routine viral and bacterial infections gone awry, among other triggers.
The immune system is supposed to be balanced, with appropriate responses by different components. For example one side of the immune system is responsible for identifying and tagging foreign proteins for removal. The other side of the immune system is responsible for seeing the “tagged” foreign protein and attacking it. When this system is in balance, it works nicely. If it is tipped on one direction or the other for an extended period of time, the immune system can begin to make mistakes and cause autoimmune responses which can lead to autoimmune disease and when extreme can even promote the formation of cancer.
Since pregnancy is the natural process of growing large “foreign” collection of proteins (our baby), we do not want our immune system to attack; therefore there is natural response during pregnancy to tip in favor of one side during the 3rd trimester. This is an absolutely natural, innate process that requires no assistance. The problem occurs when the future mother is already tipped heavily in one direction (because of environmental issues already mentioned) then getting pregnant can tip it even further, becoming excessive and triggering an autoimmune response. This is very commonly the thyroid that is attacked by the immune system.
All pregnant women, women planning to get pregnant and those suffering the symptoms since the birth of their child need to understand what they can do to help themselves. Your doctor can only prescribe medication (which is necessary when it is needed) but the rest of the health issues are up to you.
Thanks for reading!
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