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Endometriosis may increase health risk during pregnancy

A study of 15,000 women showed that the condition significantly increases the potential for miscarriage, premature birth and ectopic pregnancy.

By Stephen Feller

LISBON, Portugal, June 15 (UPI) -- Women with endometriosis are significantly more at risk to have a miscarriage, according to a study of nearly 15,000 women in Scotland.

Although women with the condition can have children, and most pregnancies are fine, the odds for a wide range of complications during pregnancy increase greatly with endometriosis.

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"However, we do not discuss what happens when they do become pregnant," Proffesor Andrew Horne, a consultant gynaecologist at the MRC Centre for Reproductive Health at the University of Edinburgh, told the BBC. "These new findings suggest that we may need to warn women with endometriosis who become pregnant that they are at higher risk of both early and late complications in pregnancy, and may warrant increased antenatal monitoring."

Endometriosis is a chronic disease that causes tissue which normally lines the inside of the uterus to grow outside of it, often involving the ovaries, bowel or tissues lining the pelvis. The condition affects between 2 and 10 percent of women.

Researchers found that endometriosis increases the odds of a miscarriage by 76 percent, increases the risk of premature birth by 26 percent and chances of needing a caesarean section by 40 percent. The odds of an ectopic pregnancy -- the fetus developing outside of the womb -- tripled from 0.6 percent to 1.6 percent.

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Data was collected by researchers between 1981 and 2010, with researchers focusing on 5,375 women with endometriosis and 8,280 who do not have it. being used for the study.

'These findings should be used to counsel women with endometriosis and inform them," Lucky Saraswat, a consultant gynaecologist at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, told the Daily Mail. "At the moment, once they are diagnosed with endometriosis, we talk about infertility but we do not talk about what happens once they get pregnant."

The study was presented at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology.

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