getting pregnant on humira | Arthritis Information

hello everyone. i am new to the board!

my name is melissa i am 31 years old & i was diagnosed with RA in January. After having my first child in August 2006 i began feeling "odd" pains on my 30th birthday in October of that year. as the year went on the pains migrated around my muscles & then the summer of 2007 just disappeared. by that september they came back full force & my body actually felt as though i was made of stone. by January 2008 & after many many many blood tests i was finally diagnosed.

i have been on humira pen injections since january & they have been an absolute god send. my only problem is my husband & i wanted to try for baby #2 this month. my rheumatologist told me i should go off the humira for 6 weeks before i even begin trying. but when i spoke to my OB she looked up humira & it is a class B. she told me the class was actually considered safer during pregnancy then some over the counter meds pregnant women might take & not even think twice about.

so my question is should i go off & wait the 6 weeks like my rheumatologist suggested or go with what my OB said. of course i don't want to mess with anything or hurt my unborn child. but she seemed so laid back about it.

i see my RA doctor next week so of course i can run by everything with him again.

i am just wondering if there is anyone here who is or became pregnant while on the injections.

thanks in advance if you made it this far!

melissa

In my personal opinion I'd wait. It's only 6 weeks to wait and then you won't have worry for 9 months, or more. Your symptoms might get better with pregnancy. I totally understand your situation, I am 30 and want to try for number 3, and final, baby. Still trying to convince husband though. We have 4 and 2 year old boys and he thinks that's enough.thanks reegie

i know it would be selfish. we just really wanted an april 2009 baby, not saying we would even get pregnant when we tried. but i don't want to go through another summer being pregnant again! haha.

anyway, thank you for your opinion & i hope your husband reconsiders & you get baby #3!

I am pretty versed in baby making, I went through the whole fertility "thing" only to come out the other end with 5 miscarriages. They recently found out that I indeed do not have ra but have another ai disease called sarcoidosis. I was on humira for over a year and my rheumy and reproductive endocrinologist both said that all the testing and data shows that it imposses no risk to the baby but that they lack any long term studies. Meaning they don't know if these babies will show any sort of defect from the drug, say when the kid is in their late teens. I had decided that I would stay on it if we tried again.

I ended up getting too ill to even try and I have now moved on to remicade infusions, which is another tnf drug. The nurses who administer the remicade have told me that they have given it to pregnant woman. I have not done my own research on the remicade as of yet because I am still too ill to raise a child.

I don't blame you there, my boys are both June babies so I only got a taste of being pregnant and huge in the summer. It sucked. If you waited you could have a May/June baby and that wouldn't be bad. Good luck!