Luna Coming to Life – A Patient Experience on Pregnancy

Sep 21, 2023 | MeekaC | @meekaclayton

Becoming pregnant for the first time can bring an equal amount of joy and nervousness, especially for someone with hEDS/HSD. We have a story to share of one of our patients who describes this feeling well in her letter to Mayo Clinic. As you can read, “Luna” is a happy healthy little girl who one day will learn more about the obstacles her mother faced bringing her into this world.

Research on obstetric management of hEDS/HSD is still in the early stages, and some obstetricians have more familiarity with it than others. And while there are no established guidelines on pregnancy for patients with EDS/HSD, there are some well known observations to take into consideration. Some of these include an increase risk of minor bleeding during pregnancy, earlier onset and rapid progression of labor and the potential for poor wound healing. Fortunately, despite these risks, patients with EDS/HSD typically have no complications and there is no contraindication to becoming pregnant if you have hEDS or HSD. Future work is being developed by Dr. Sally Pezaro an academic midwife in the UK. We expect her work and the research we are doing here will bring us better answers and many more happy stories like Luna’s along the way.

Author: Dacre Knight, MD