guidelines<\/a>, and the lack of clinical evidence around endometriosis and women\u2019s health in general, myths like these can prevail in the clinical setting.\u00a0 As a physician, it\u2019s difficult to see OB-GYN\u2019s in 2018 \u201cprescribe\u201d pregnancy as a cure for endometriosis when it is patently untrue.<\/p>\nNow, is it true that if a woman\u2019s pain is only a few days around her period she may get relief during her pregnancy and for a period of time following delivery, especially if she is breastfeeding. Some women may experience a generalized decrease in pain while pregnant. This is most likely due to hormonal changes and possibly a result of autoimmune features of pregnancy and stem cells that are produced during this time.\u00a0 While unlikely, there are others who will have pregnancies that may have complications because of endometriosis (increased risk of placenta previa with deeply invasive disease), or become highly symptomatic in the post-partum period, and beyond, which of course can be very detrimental to both mother and child.<\/p>\n
Pregnancy does not cure endometriosis. It is irresponsible and negligent for doctors to suggest pregnancy to a woman as a treatment for endometriosis, especially if she is in severe pain, as the pain will usually return after delivery. Having to take care of a newborn child while dealing with incapacitating pain only creates more problems for a woman suffering from endometriosis.\u00a0 A physician recommending pregnancy as treatment for endometriosis is a red flag as it is a sign of a basic misunderstanding of this disease by the physician and makes it likely the patient hasn\u2019t been properly treated, or sometimes even diagnosed.\u00a0 As well, for a woman who does want to have children at that time, it can cause psychological trauma if she does not become pregnant after trying. All in all, it is time to take this centuries-old myth out of clinically-evidenced based medical practices.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css_animation=”fadeIn”]This myth can actually be traced back to Hippocrates in 5th century BC.\u00a0 He…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":15444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-endometriosis","category-endometriosis-pelvic-pain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vitalhealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vitalhealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vitalhealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vitalhealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vitalhealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vitalhealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vitalhealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vitalhealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vitalhealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vitalhealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}