Effect of Pregnancy on Autoimmune Rheumatic Diseases

Abstract

Pregnancy is associated with significant physiological changes in multiple organ systems including immune system. Due to the need to maintain the fetus, the immune responses are blunted or skewed to prevent rejection of the fetus. These changes include inhibition of uterine NK cells, increase in immunoregulatory macrophages, dendritic cells, and T cells. These changes are probably mediated by the hormonal changes present in pregnancy. Pregnancy has variable effect on disease activity of different autoimmune disease with decrease in RA and some increase in risk of flares in SLE, while data on other diseases is scant.