Women’s risk of developing multiple sclerosis decreases with each pregnancy, a new study has claimed.
Dr Anne-Louise Ponsonby, of Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia, said that women who were pregnant two or more times had a quarter of the risk of developing MS symptoms than women who had never been pregnant.
Women who had five or more pregnancies had one-twentieth the risk of developing symptoms than women who were never pregnant. There was no association between the amount of children and risk of MS symptoms in men.
Researchers reviewed information about 282 Australian men and women between the ages of 18 and 59 who had a first diagnosis of central nervous demyelination, but had not yet been diagnosed with MS.
They were compared to 542 men and women who had no MS symptoms. For women, the number of pregnancies lasting at least 20 weeks and the number of live births were recorded. For men, the number of children born was recorded.
“In our study, the risk went down with each pregnancy and the benefit was permanent,” said Dr Ponsonby, whose findings are published this week in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
“The rate of MS cases has been increasing in women over the last few decades, and our research suggests that this may be due to mothers having children later in life and having fewer children than they have in past years.”
Neurology March 7 2012
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