I thought I’d just put it out there as there wasn’t much information available to me at the time on anyone who went through anything similar. So this is my experience with RA & pregnancy.

It’s important to remember everyone is different & this is just my experience where I seem to be a bit of an exception so don’t stress or automatically think it will happen to you. 😉

I’ve had RA since I was 15. I am now 33 & have a 3 year old daughter.

I have been on numerous medications & treatment over the years including but not limited to plaquenil, methotrexate, prednisone, enbrel injections & my treatment for the last almost 7 years has been where I have the Actemera infusion every 4 weeks.

I was on the Actemera & methotrexate before we started considering trying for children. However as the advice is you can not have children on methotrexate (nor did I want to), I wanted it well out of my system before we started trying. So I had stopped it about a year beforehand but stayed on the infusion & with the advice of my Rhematologist I swapped to plaquenil instead to cover me until we started trying to conceive where I chose to try without the plaquenil (while being monitored of course).

Once I fell pregnant with my first, I had my last infusion around the 7-8 week mark & then stopped my treatments.

Although they don’t think the Actemera crosses the placenta from the 14 week mark, it is still a fairly newish drug plus I’m told there are only about 50ish people worldwide who were on it when they fell pregnant.

Unless someone volunteers to continue to stay on it during their whole pregnancy there won’t be any studies. However I now know I am 1 of 3 women in Australia who has had a child who were on Actemera.

All 3 of us have had healthy babies 😊.

Normally they say something like 95% of women with RA who fall pregnant, go into remission or their RA significantly lowers during pregnancy.

I happened to be in that slim percentage where my RA did not go into remission or lower during pregnancy. As I was no longer being treated with my infusion, I was stubborn (as I didn’t want to take anything during pregnancy) & toughed it out until 20 weeks, where I was in so much pain I was advised it wasn’t safe to go untreated as I could lose the baby.

I then went on a low dose of prednisone as much as safely advised for the rest of the pregnancy.

I admit I really struggled, especially towards the end of the pregnancy & I was in so much pain I struggled to dress myself or put a bra on without being in high amounts of pain & in tears constantly. I did however get through it with the best possible outcome. My perfectly healthy baby girl was born. 😍🤱🏻

After she was born I was able to go back on my infusion & get my RA under control again where I could wean myself off the prednisone.

I absolutely love my life & once you hold that little miracle you helped grow & create you wouldn’t change it for a thing.

My daughter is now 3 & very healthy, happy & active. 😊

I’m not sure if any of this helps anyone but if you have any questions feel free to ask & I’ll try my best to answer given my experience.

Rheumatoid Arthritis