✓ Thyroid tests before getting pregnant

Source: Contrasto

Before putting a baby in the yard, either naturally or with artificial insemination, it is good to have one screening of the health of your thyroid: the recommendation comes from the doctors of the Ait (Associazione Del Paesena della thyroid) gathered in our city for their 8th congress.

Second Stefano Palomba, gynecologist at the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital in Reggio Emilia, "the thyroid gland plays an essential role in guaranteeing fertility considering that thyroid hormones contribute to regulation of ovulation".

And no less important is this gland for the phases immediately following conception, "also influenced by maternal thyroid hormones, which guarantee a complex series of physiological events necessary for good progress of pregnancy and correct fetal development". Among other things, Palomba recalls that" in the first three months of pregnancy it is the mother's thyroid that also works for the fetus, since it develops its thyroid only around the twelfth week ".

Also read: 10 things to do before getting pregnant

According to Roberto Negro, doctor of the Endocrinology unit of the Vito Fazzi hospital in Lecce, the more hypothyroidism is accentuated, the more difficult it is to conceive; and even when conception occurs, the risk of spontaneous abortion increases. “This - explains the doctor - concerns both natural pregnancies and those induced with medically assisted fertilization. It has been observed that 10% of women undergoing assisted fertilization have Hashimoto's thyroiditis (one of the most frequent thyroid diseases, Ed) which risks becoming hypothyroidism following ovarian stimulation therapy ".

But what are the tests to do to see how the thyroid is working? At the forefront is the TSH hormone dosage: a blood test is enough to do this. If the level of this hormone approaches the upper limit of the reference range indicated by the analysis laboratory (or exceeds it) it is appropriate to further investigate, with the search for anti-thyroid antibodies. In some cases, moreover, it will also be possible to evaluate the level of free thyroid hormones, such as thyroxine (fT4).