San Francisco – Should you give rheumatoid arthritis patients tumor necrosis factor blockers during pregnancy? What can you substitute for methotrexate?
And what in the world do you do about breast feeding?
“The management of rheumatoid arthritis in pregnancy seems to be evolving,” explained Dr. Megan Clowse, a specialist in rheumatology and pregnancy at Duke University, Durham, N.C. “The old strategy of just stopping all the medications and letting the woman flare and using some prednisone really doesn’t seem to actually be achieving the outcomes that we need to get.”
Dr. Clowse answered a host of pregnancy-related questions and more in a pearl-filled interview at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology.