New surveys using data from ArthritisPower and CreakyJoints, part of the Global Healthy Living Foundation show women living with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) lack the information and resources to make confident decisions when it comes to reproductive health and family planning.
“The findings show us that women with arthritis really worry about pregnancy and the impact that their disease and medications might have on their children,” Dr. Megan E.B. Clowse, a rheumatologist at Duke School of Medicine who led the research team, said in a press release. “It is also clear that many of them aren’t informed about the current data and would benefit from better education and communication tools that specifically address these issues.”
Women often fear that RA would make them incapable of caring for a child, that it might harm a child, and that it could be passed on to their children, according to a press release.
“Our study demonstrates that more research is needed to better understand how women seek to balance inflammatory arthritis treatment with family planning,” W. Benjamin Nowell, director of patient-centered research at CreakyJoints, principal investigator of ArthritisPower and a co-investigator on the reproductive concerns studies, said in the release.
