Scared!

[Rachel W]

Ok so I have always been nervous about getting pregnant , and now even more so ! I have a few concerns..

. How much harder is it going to be for me to even GET preggo

. how much harder is it going to be on me being a Celiac patient then a normal pregnancy.

. what about my child? I just feel like if i learned they were affected I would feel awful ! I have alot of damage, I have been severe since childhood but never taken to the doctor as a child , so needless to say 23 yrs of fried Villi!!!

Does anybody worry about this or am I just neurotic lol

[stef-the-kicking-cuty]

I've had the same problem. Got diagnosed in 2004, 5 days before my 28th birthday. Couldn't get pregnant until November 2006. I was 30.5 years at that point, so it took me a while. I had a dream pregnancy, just speaking of being nauseous. I only really had an about two week period, where I felt a little blah, but nothing worth mentioning. I slightly spit a little bit for about 5 minutes during that time period and on one day I threw up heavily for like 15-20 minutes and that was it. For the ENTIRE pregnancy. Then the other physical ailments or pain were like non-exitent. The only major insident I had at about 6 months was that I almost miscarried. And even THEN no pain or anything, just slight pressure. If not for some co-incidental visit at the ObGyn the exact same day AND my own doc being on vacation I would be typing these words with both hands free

My son was born without any birth defects, and my worries about him being damaged or anything were not necessary in the end. My own body showed a muscular problem at times, like I have it, when I get glutened, but without actually being glutened. Like when I almost lost him, that was due to my uterus muscles not functioning properly. At delivery, when it was time to push, I almost passed out, because my muscles just stopped working.

It all worked out in the end though.

Stef

Ok so I have always been nervous about getting pregnant , and now even more so ! I have a few concerns..

. How much harder is it going to be for me to even GET preggo

. how much harder is it going to be on me being a Celiac patient then a normal pregnancy.

. what about my child? I just feel like if i learned they were affected I would feel awful ! I have alot of damage, I have been severe since childhood but never taken to the doctor as a child , so needless to say 23 yrs of fried Villi!!!

Does anybody worry about this or am I just neurotic lol

[NicoleAJ]

I'm 32 weeks pregnant now, and it was no harder to get pregnant for me than it is for anyone else (I went completely gluten free almost 6 years ago). I've had celiac symptoms since having a serious illness that landed me in the hospital for 6 weeks during my infancy, but I was not diagnosed until I was 24, so my damage was pretty severe. My OB told me that as long as I follow the gluten free diet as carefully as I always have, I shouldn't have any complications due to celiac. For the most part this has been true. We've had to stay on top of my vitamin D, B-12, and iron/ferritin levels because I've developed deficiencies here and there that have needed to be taken care of, but actually the slowed down GI tract during pregnancy has been a welcome side effect for me. Because we knew that I might be more susceptible to deficiencies, we've kept a closer eye on things and have always caught everything with plenty of time to take additional supplements (beyond my regular prenatals and DHA)so that the baby can get what she needs.

Good luck and don't stress yourself out too much.

[tarnalberry]

I'm 38 weeks preggo at the moment, and everything is looking just fine so far. (Including the baby being very consistent about kicking the midwives most every time they check her position. ) I'm 31.5years old and we got pregnant on our first try. I've been gluten-free for 7 years, and have been extra anal about not getting glutened during the pregnancy. (I usually don't get glutened more than once or twice a year, as far as I can tell, anyway.)

As long as you are gluten free, stay gluten free, and address any nutritional deficiencies (either celiac induced, or not, as anemia is a very common, "normal", deficiency during pregnancy), there's no reason to suggest that you'll experience any more difficult of a pregnancy than if you weren't celiac. If you've JUST been diagnosed (dr or self), you might want to give yourself a few months before trying to get pregnant in order to let the villi heal and better absorb the nutrients you need, but I wouldn't worry about it if you're newly gluten-free and also newly pregnant. Just stay gluten-free.

Every pregnancy is different - from woman to woman and even with different children for the same pregnancy - so there's no way to say what *YOUR'S* will be like. I had nausea pretty much the entire first trimester fairly significantly, but only threw up once, the day I suspect implantation, when I was hiking out the last day of a 5 day backpacking trip. I've had the usual fatigue, the shortness in breath, pubic symphysis pain, breast tenderness, strange changes to appetite (both up and down), some heartburn and hip pain (especially this late in the pregnancy), but it's all quite standard. It's helped I've kept teaching yoga and walking the dog just about every day of the week.

As for the kid, celiac is genetic, so you have the chance of passing the genes on to him/her, but having celiac disease (or gluten intolerance) isn't the end of the world. You not eating gluten won't hurt him/her during pregnancy or breastfeeding either.