Re: I'm in remission from cancer. Do I need to know anything special before I get pregnant?
While your situation depends on the type of cancer you had and the treatment you were given, most women who've beaten cancer can definitely go on to have healthy pregnancies, as well as perfectly healthy babies. Still, it's important to know that chemotherapy and radiation can reduce your egg count -- so you may need to consider fertility drugs or other lab methods to get pregnant. And although no studies have definitively proven it, some docs suggest waiting up to five years after you beat cancer to try to conceive again, since any fertility drugs you may need to take will bump up your hormone levels. (This is especially true for any cancers linked to hormones, like breast cancer.)
Bottom line: There's no concrete proof that pregnancy increases your risk of getting cancer again, and cancer affects only one in about 1,000 pregnancies. But as long as you check with your doc and get the go-ahead, you can get down to babymaking ASAP.
Colleen Canney | April 20 , 2010 1:52 PM