Search for tag: "pregnancy"

Dr. Jones: Your period is late and you got the test and you're pretty sure it says that it's positive, but this pregnancy wasn't planned. What are you thinking about and how do you feel?

Well, it turns out that in the United States and around the world, about half of pregnancies are unplanned. Unplanned meaning you weren't thinking about having a baby next month, it wasn't exactly on time, but unplanned usually means that you weren't planning on having a baby any time in the immediate future.

In the unplanned category, of these 50% of pregnancies that are unplanned, about half of them are mistimed. You might say that. A woman would say that she was planning on having a baby sometime, but just not right now.

And about half of those unplanned pregnancies are unwanted, meaning the woman when asked in interviews . . . And these interviews are done nationally about every five to six years through the National Survey of Family Growth and many other organizations who try to get a better understanding of this issue. In that spectrum of unplanned pregnancies comes a spectrum of different emotions.

In the virtual Scope studio today is Jamie Hales. And Jamie is a clinical manager at the Huntsman Mental Health Institute. She's here as a social worker to help us kind of think about what are the emotional responses to an unplanned pregnancy. So thank you for being in the studio, the virtual studio with us, Jamie.

Jamie: Thank you. I appreciate you having me.

Dr. Jones: So I'll give you a little bit of my background. I'm a reproductive endocrinologist and an infertility specialist. So, clearly, the unplanned pregnancy among my infertility patients is one that's met with often surprise and joy. But I'm also a family planning specialist and I've been an abortion provider for pregnancy termination.

And the spectrum of emotions is huge in terms of people who come and are faced with a pregnancy that they either didn't want now or didn't want ever. Can you tell me a little bit about your experience and what you've seen?

Jamie: I would completely echo that experience. What I most often see in my practice is more when somebody has had an unexpected pregnancy, it's a happy thing. They're excited about it. But I 100% see people where that is the exact opposite experience.

Sometimes our society, the idea is that, as a woman, you're supposed to be extremely excited about this new journey and chapter in your life. It isn't always that way for everybody, and that's not a bad thing.

And I think something that's really important when you're working with people who are childbearing age is to be as open-minded as possible about this because not everybody's pregnancy journey is the same. There is variation all over the place, and I think it can be hard sometimes for people to admit that, "Yeah, this is something that I'm really struggling with."

Dr. Jones: We go down this pathway of healthy baby, healthy mommy, and we don't spend a little time and say, "Why don't you tell me how you're feeling about this?"

Quite frankly, I'm a mother and a grandmother, and I planned my pregnancy down to the minute, but I was ambivalent. Even though it was highly planned, I was ambivalent thinking, "My life will never be the same." And there was a little bit of worry and grieving about that, even in a very planned pregnancy.

I think it's a matter of recognizing that it's an emotional rollercoaster. First of all, your hormones are different. You are now in a potentially new social domain going forward. You will now be a new person, if you choose to continue the pregnancy, called a mother. And then there's your own emotional makeup and you don't want to do that.

Listen with an open heart. I don't know how to put that in any other way. It's rare to have someone who's so neutral that they've got nothing going on. I worry if I see that.

Jamie: That's a very good point. I think being completely neutral about your pregnancy probably is more of a red flag than having some strong feelings about it either direction.

And those feelings can change, right? One day you may be feeling absolutely fantastic about it, and then there may be other days where that is not the case. And ultimately, it isn't up to the people around you to decide what the normal range of emotion is. That's up to you.

It can be a very fraught topic, but it's also one that I think is very important for us to discuss because this is another one of those situations where you might be out there experiencing some of these thoughts and feelings and think, "Wow, I'm the only one that's dealing with this right now," or, "I don't want to say anything because nobody is going to understand." And it is much more common than I think people realize. 

Dr. Jones: So how do we begin to help women negotiate how they're feeling and what they're planning on doing, figure out what are the resources available to them?

Jamie: Resource-wise, there are a couple of groups that are done online through Postpartum Support International. They have a virtual group for medical termination and also one for post-termination support, even if it wasn't for medical reasons.

So there are really good resources out there, and I think it's important to speak up if it's something that you're struggling with.

Ultimately, at the end of the day, we're not the ones that have to make really tough choices around this. And what the person wants and how they're feeling about it absolutely comes ahead of what any of the rest of us may or may not think about that pregnancy.

If you're going to therapy, that's a really great safe space, I think, a lot of the time to bring up complicated feelings about stuff because it's confidential.

And not everybody in your life may agree one way or the other with your choice whether to continue, not continue, the fact that it happened in the first place.

There are a lot of factors that go into unplanned pregnancies. There's a change in identity. Everyone, I think, comes at it with a different background, a different degree of support and resources.

Dr. Jones: Right. And most women struggle in the sense that they are making a decision thoughtfully, and when they finally make their decision, they're usually pretty sure. But on the way, it's giving them the information that they need so that they can feel that the next 60 years of their life one way or the other is written in a way that they can feel comfortable and move ahead.

I want to thank you so much for joining us. And for everyone who's been listening, thank you for joining us on the "7 Domains."

You are pregnant and trying to do the right thing to keep yourself healthy and provide a safe place for your growing pregnancy. Is it time to get a COVID vaccine?

I have tragic memory of being part of a team that cared for a wonderful young woman who was pregnant and got influenza. Influenza isn't usually lethal to healthy young people, but it's dangerous in pregnancy. We knew this young woman. She worked in our unit, and she and her baby died of influenza. This was before my hospital required all employees to be vaccinated for the flu each year. Now we have over a decade of information about the influenza vaccine in pregnancy and safety, and we encourage every one of our patients to get the flu vaccine. It saves lives.

Now we have this other virus, COVID-19. COVID isn't new to us as humans. We've seen several other COVID viruses that were quite deadly in the past 20 years, but they didn't go that far and we see coronaviruses, the COVID family, make up some of the virus that caused the common cold. But COVID-19 is very contagious and causes severe illnesses and death all too frequently and lingering illnesses in many of those who weren't even really sick.

So when we first offered the COVID-19 vaccine, we had little information about COVID vaccine in pregnancy, but we had almost nine months of data on the COVID-19 virus infection and how it affected pregnant women. Here at the University of Utah, Dr. Torri Metz, a specialist in high-risk pregnancy, helped lead a national team to collect information about pregnant women who were infected with COVID-19. We talked with her, and she said it was sobering to see that young, healthy women who were pregnant had much more serious courses of the infection than women of the same age who weren't pregnant. They were more likely to get hospitalized, they were more likely to be admitted to the intensive care unit, they were more likely to be put on a ventilator, and if their oxygen levels became too low, they were more likely to lose their babies and sometimes they lost their lives.

But it took us another nine months to collect information about women who were pregnant and were vaccinated and compare outcomes to women who were pregnant and were not vaccinated. And the news is good and compelling about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine in pregnancy.

So what is true? One, the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines had no adverse effects on fertility, pregnancy, and offspring in lab animals. Two, in 35,000 women who were pregnant and received the COVID-19 vaccine, headache, muscle aches, chills, and fever were less frequent in pregnant women than in non-pregnant patients. Three, injection site pain, where you got the shot, was more frequent in pregnant women, but it wasn't really all that bad. Four, the safety data following 4,000 pregnancies in women who were vaccinated showed no higher rates of miscarriage, no higher rates of preterm birth, no higher rate of newborn birth defects, or deaths compared to what we normally experience in pregnancy. I'm going to say that again. There were no higher rates of miscarriage, preterm births, or birth defects in women who were vaccinated compared to women who aren't vaccinated. Number five, women who are infected with COVID-19 have an increased risk of harmful abnormalities in the placenta. Women who are vaccinated don't have these harmful changes. Six, women who are vaccinated are five times less likely to get COVID-19 compared to pregnant women who are not vaccinated, one-fifth the rate of getting COVID compared to non-vaccinated pregnant women. Seven, women who are vaccinated give good antibodies to COVID-19 to their newborn babies. So there are seven true things.

What's not true? One, the COVID-19 vaccine causes infertility. It doesn't. Two, the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines have DNA in them and will alter the DNA of the fetus. Nope. These vaccines have mRNA in them, and these molecules are very short-lived and act mostly in the muscle around the shot. They don't change the DNA of the fetus or the mom. Three, the COVID vaccine has a microchip in it to track you. Really? I don't know where that ever came from, but it's one of the silliest of the vaccine myths.

Women who are pregnant are at high risk if they become infected with COVID-19. Pregnancy may lower women's immune responses, but the vaccine is still very protective against women developing complications from COVID-19.

With the information about the risks of COVID-19 infection to the pregnant mother and now the efficacy data from the vaccine outcome data collection and the safety information from more than thousands of women who were vaccinated while pregnant, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and the Society of Maternal-Fetal Medicine have strongly recommended that women who are considering pregnancy, trying to get pregnant, who are pregnant, or who are breastfeeding get vaccinated with the COVID-19 vaccine.

I think back to the day when I saw a young woman die of influenza and how much the flu vaccine is part of our counseling to pregnant women during flu season. So if it's flu season and you're pregnant or breastfeeding, don't forget to get your flu vaccine. And no matter what season it is, if you are pregnant, trying to get pregnant, or breastfeeding, please talk to your clinician and get vaccinated against COVID-19. And because no vaccine is perfect, please wear a mask that covers your nose and mouth when you're indoors in groups of people and practice social distancing if you're with people who aren't vaccinated.

And thanks for doing what you can to protect yourself, your baby, and those around you. And thanks for joining us on The Scope.

Interviewer: We're with Dr. Stephen Fenton. He is the founder and director of the Utah Fetal Center at Primary Children's Hospital. And it is for women who have high-risk pregnancies due to a congenital anomaly with the child. There is kind of a way things used to be done. And now there's a way things are done at the Utah Fetal Center, Primary Children's Hospital, which is a much better way. Dr. Fenton, first of all, you're the founder and the director. You came in and you said, "I want to start this center."Why did you say that?

Dr. Fenton: I don't want anyone to ever think or believe that what was happening before wasn't being done to the best of its ability because it certainly was. All of these conditions were being cared for before. But the reality is it was kind of done in what I would term a physician-centered approach. So oftentimes that would require multiple clinic visits because they were separate clinics in each of the physician's clinics. And you can imagine how frustrating and how hard that must have been for that mom to kind of shoulder that burden all on her own.

Interviewer: It was a very stressful time.

Dr. Fenton: Very stressful time.

Interviewer: Just to coordinate her care kind of.

Dr. Fenton: I mean, and during all that time, of course, worried about her unborn child. And so what we've done is we've kind of shifted it from this physician-centered care to what I term patient-centered care with a multidisciplinary approach. So we, over the last five years, have put together a multidisciplinary team of all of these specialists that care for the child and for the anomaly. In addition, we've added adult specialists, so maternal fetal medicine or high-risk OBs that care for the mom, all in one place. We didn't have adult providers at the Children's Hospital. Now we have these adult MFM providers who help care for these moms. We also added a coordinator. We've added nurse coordinators that actually help the mom wade through all of this, and ancillary staff, such as a social worker, who can also help with the non-clinical aspects. We are now all in the same place. Instead of being in our individual silos, if you will, we're all located together where we can look at the images together, where we can talk about it, and where we can come up with a care plan not only for the mom until baby is delivered, but also for the child after delivery.

Interviewer: What is the objective of the center?

Dr. Fenton: We want to make sure mom and baby first have the right diagnosis. It's much easier to help the parent learn what the condition is and start understanding what the treatment, if any, will entail before the child is born. Now that's one aspect. The other aspect is some of these kids need intervention before they're born. And in order to do that, it's very specialized. It requires a team and it requires being able to take the mom to proper diagnosis and from diagnosis to intervention, and then from intervention to delivery safely. And you can't do that without proper infrastructure, and the Utah Fetal Center is that infrastructure.

Interviewer: Can you give me an example of a couple of the common conditions that you would require that would require this multidisciplinary team?

Dr. Fenton: Congenital diaphragmatic hernia is one that comes to mind, myelomeningocele, that's another word for spinal bifida, CPAM or congenital pulmonary airway malformation also known as congenital lung lesion, atresias, intestinal atresias, omphalocele, gastroschisis. These are all things that are surgical too. We oftentimes see kids that don't necessarily require surgery. So some of the genetic disorders like trisomy 21. We also see kids that have neurologic issues, so brain malformations that won't necessarily require intervention, but will require a coordinated care with multiple providers.

Interviewer: What does that initial consultation entail when they come to you? What does that look like?

Dr. Fenton: In the morning, they oftentimes will undergo an ultrasound and consultation with one of the maternal-fetal medicine physicians that work at the Utah Fetal Center. Dependent on what the original diagnosis is, and oftentimes we have already received outside imaging from the referring providers and reviewed it, they might also undergo a fetal MRI, and that fetal MRI will give us even more detail, especially when we can compare it to the ultrasound that happens on that same day. It's read by the fetal radiologists that work in the center. And then usually we give them a little bit of a break. They go to lunch, etc., and then come back in the afternoon or early afternoon, and there, they will see the specialist, the sub-specialist that will ultimately care for their child.

Interviewer: If a patient wasn't referred and they believe that the Utah Fetal Center is the place that they would like to go, are they able to call?

Dr. Fenton: Absolutely. They can go to our website, utahfetalcenter.org and self-refer. We really want to help these parents get through this very, very difficult time. We understand that there are a lot of providers out there that are doing a portion of this, and we certainly appreciate all that they are doing. We are not looking to just assume all care of these moms because we know that a lot of their care can be delivered close to home, but we do feel like it's very, very beneficial to start that coordination of care early so that we can help the parents understand what is happening, obtain expectations on the treatment plan, as well as understand the treatments involved and then initiate that plan early, and in the long run we know that doing so with the help of the many providers, not only here at the University of Utah and Primary Children's Hospital, but across the state will allow us to do that.

Dr. Jones: What if you didn't have to go to the doctor's office to get your birth control prescription renewed? What if low-income women, that includes moms and students, had access to the most effective means of contraception? This is Dr. Kirtly Jones from Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Utah Health, and this is The Seven Domains of Women's Health on The Scope.

Announcer: Covering all aspects of women's health. This is The Seven Domains of Women Health with Dr. Kirtly Jones on The Scope.

Dr. Jones: What would the world look like if every child was wanted and planned for with a mother in her very best physical, emotional, and financial health? We know that the health status of the mom and the early environment for the infant have long-lasting positive and negative effects on children and the adults that they will become. So planning your children to support their success is a good idea, huh?

It turns out that governments, state and federal, have a heavy hand in determining who gets birth control, what kind they get, and where they get it, and how much they pay for it. The states with the least access to family planning have the highest rates of unplanned pregnancies and the highest rates of maternal deaths. On the other hand, the states that offer women and families the greatest access to family planning do better.

This year, the state of Utah took a step in the direction of making contraception easier to get and more affordable for some women. Firstly, Utah now joins a few other states, including California, Oregon, and Colorado, in allowing women to get their birth control prescription renewed and refilled by a pharmacist. One factor in women having gaps in their contraceptive coverage is when their prescription runs out. They may have to go back and see the doctor or the nurse practitioner. This can be time-consuming, taking time off work or child care, and can be expensive.

Now, for women who've had a prescription by a licensed provider and the prescriptions can be renewed and refilled by a pharmacist, this makes it more convenient for women to continue on their birth control pills, patches, or rings. Just a few years ago, this idea would not have found favor in the Utah legislature, but the reality that unwanted and unplanned pregnancies are expensive for the state in the case of Medicare, covering the pregnancies and deliveries, and that the knowledge that women who get pregnant who aren't healthy have more expensive pregnancies, as well as more complications for their babies that are born, this got the legislators' attention this time.

The new law, which unanimously, I will say that again, unanimously passed the Utah legislature takes effect May 8th, 2018. Women will need to fill out a form at the pharmacy to assess their risks, and they'll need to check with a clinician every two years instead of every year.

At the same time, the governor also signed a bill to increase coverage for the most effective and expensive forms of reversible contraception. The most effective forms of contraception are long-lasting IUDs and implants. They may last for 3 to 12 years depending on the type, but can be removed at any time and fertility resumes very quickly.

The methods aren't so expensive on a month-to-month basis, but because all of the costs have to be paid upfront, many low-income women can't access these methods. Utah now joins many states and by including a Medicaid waiver to allow low-income women to have access to these methods on their Medicaid. Utah was only one of seven states that didn't have this waiver, and now it joins most of the states in the U.S. Of course, these methods require a trained health professional to place them, and many doctors don't know how. So the next job is to make sure that the many clinicians around the state have the knowledge to counsel women and the skills to provide them.

So Utah is in the forefront with the few, mostly blue states in the first bill that allows pharmacists to renew, for a year, a birth control prescription, and that is great. The state is catching up with most states with the second bill about Medicaid waiver. A great part of this news is that the legislators who wrote these bills that were passed were informed by young professionals at the University of Utah. The first bill was suggested by a pharmacy grad student at the University of Utah, and the second bill was proposed by a legislator who spent a lot of time listening to the rationale and ideas of a group of young clinicians and educators at the U. How great is that?

Wouldn't it be great if every baby born in our pretty, great state could be wanted and planned for by a mother in her best physical, psychological, and financial health at the top of her game in all of her seven domains of health? Did I say that already? It would be really great. And I've said great at least seven times in this broadcast, so I'm really excited.

Ladies, at the end of the day, it's really up to you. But now, it just got a little easier. And thanks for joining us on The Scope.

Announcer: Have a question about a medical procedure? Want to learn more about a health condition? With over 2,000 interviews with our physicians and specialists, there's a pretty good chance you'll find what you want to know. Check it out at thescoperadio.com.

Dr. Jones: Most women who were trying to become pregnant and had a miscarriage are eager to try to get pregnant again. What have we learned about how women might prepare for the next try? This is Dr. Kirtly Jones from Obstetrics and Gynecology at University of Utah Health, and this is "The Seven Domains of Women's Health" on The Scope.

Announcer: Covering all aspects of women's health, this is "The Seven Domains of Women's Health" with Dr. Kirtly Jones on The Scope.

Dr. Jones: Early pregnancy loss, miscarriage, is pretty common. Rates vary from 15% to 30% depending on the age of the woman and how early a pregnancy is detected. Certainly, we know that some things are associated with higher rates of early miscarriage, such as age of the mom, especially after 40, and poorly controlled diabetes, for example. However, for young women who had one or two miscarriages, are there any new clues about causes or things women can do to increase the chance that the next pregnancy would be healthy and go to term?

Now, early miscarriage has been the focus of a lot of research in the past 15 years as well as the focus of a lot of cultural myths for thousands of years. We hear from our mothers, sisters, and aunties that we should eat this, don't eat that, do this, don't do that. One recommendation that had been around for about 15 years is that low-dose aspirin, a baby aspirin of 81 milligrams, would increase the chances of pregnancy and decrease the risk of miscarriage.

Several years ago, a large randomized trial done here at the University of Utah and in three other centers around the country looked at over 1,000 young women under 40 who are healthy and had a history of 1 or 2 early miscarriages. These women are randomized with baby aspirin and folic acid, or just folic acid, and their next pregnancies were studied very carefully. Overall, they found that the majority of women had successful pregnancies, about 58%, with the next try whether they took the aspirin or not, and aspirin didn't decrease the chance of miscarriage.

Now, this work was reported in 2014, but there have been some other interesting findings from this study and one that was reported recently. Women in this study were mostly white, often overweight, and the average was 29. The average blood pressure was 111/72. Now, that's a nice average blood pressure for young women. But here's what's new.

For every 10 points increase in the diastolic blood pressure, that's the lower number, there was an increase of 18% in the risk of miscarriage. This means that young women with slightly elevated blood pressure but not a diagnosis of hypertension were increased risk of miscarriage. The study in the journal "Hypertension" found no association of blood pressure with the ability to get pregnant or the rate to get pregnant. They controlled for smoking, body mass index, marital status, education, and other factors that are known to be independently related to miscarriage. And that means that the blood pressure alone or with other factors that they couldn't measure is associated with an increased risk of miscarriage.

Now, we know that hypertension before pregnancy is associated with a number of various very serious problems in pregnancy including still birth, pre-eclampsia, pre-term birth, and placental abruption where the placenta prematurely separates from the uterus before the birth of the baby. This finding that even what we might call pre-hypertension, just a medium elevation of blood pressure in young women, is associated with miscarriage is important. So what's the takeaway from this?

First of all, all pregnancy should be started with women in their best emotional, physical, social, and financial health. If you're thinking about getting pregnant, stopping smoking and maintaining a healthy weight are important because both of these conditions are associated with miscarriage, smoking, and being overweight. And if you can get your blood pressure checked before you get pregnant and if the lower number is between 70 and 80, you might consider increasing your exercise, being mindful to manage your stress, and consider a diet lower in salt and higher in vegetables and healthy fats, kind of that Mediterranean diet thing that we've talked a lot on The Scope a lot.

No matter what happens in your pregnancy, these changes are good for your current and long-term health. Of course, if you are hypertensive, with the lower number over 80, you should get your blood pressure under control before pregnancy with diet and exercise, or with medication. This is really important not just for you, but for the new person you hope to grow. And thanks for joining us on The Scope.

Announcer: Have a question about a medical procedure? Want to learn more about a health condition? With over 2,000 interviews with our physicians and specialists, there's a pretty good chance you'll find what you want to know. Check it out at thescoperadio.com.