Rheumatoid arthritis is an inflammatory disease that is chronic and systemic. It affects joints in people of all ages and it is very difficult to live with, coming with a need of proper attention and special rheumatoid arthritis medication. When talking about rheumatoid arthritis and pregnancy we are faced with a condition that alters the immune state of the body, thus contributing to a change in the disease. Different studies have shown that pregnancy brings an improvement in the development of rheumatoid arthritis. This comes as opposed to common beliefs that state the extra weight of the baby will put more stress on the already weakened joints. The improvement in rheumatoid arthritis linked with pregnancy has been proven through different prospective and retrospective studies in the past.

What needs to be understood when talking about rheumatoid arthritis and pregnancy is that around 70 to 80 percent of women will show signs of remission during pregnancy but the rest do not and can even worsen the disease, thus needing special rheumatoid arthritis treatment during pregnancy. On the other hand, even if remission is visible during pregnancy, rheumatoid arthritis symptoms usually come back after the postpartum period. Specialists still do not know the effect of pregnancy on the different manifestations of rheumatoid arthritis and different studies are being conducted in order to find a link between the two.

People still do not know the pathophysiology of the improvement of rheumatoid arthritis during pregnancy. All we have is theories that are currently being investigated. There is an ameliorating effect in the majority of cases but we need to realize that there are many factors involve as during pregnancy there are a lot of modifications going on in the human body.

Many theories have been proposed for explaining the link between pregnancy and rheumatoid arthritis evolution. The most talked about stands in the effect of hormonal changes experiences. During pregnancy we can notice increased levels of progestin, estrogen and cortisol. Cell mediated immunity is also affected by pregnancy and humoral immunity will be modified together with neutrophil functions.

So far the studies focusing on rheumatoid arthritis and pregnancy do bring good news but this does not mean that by getting pregnant you will see an improvement of the disease. On the other hand, the fact that improvements are visible brings in the thought that something that happens then can aid rheumatoid arthritis patients so this must be investigated further. 

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