The UK MS Pregnancy Register continues to go from strength to strength. We now have over 350 registered participants, and are working to make sure that we have as much follow up information as possible as well as capturing as many MS pregnancies as possible. If you are contacted by the researchers on this study to complete questionnaires you may have missed, please do log in and do these, as every piece of information helps us to build up a more complete understanding of pregnancy and MS.

We presented some of the data that you have helped us to generate at the annual meeting of the Association of British Neurologists in May, and are presenting a poster at the ECTRIMS meeting in September. The information that you have provided shows us that most people with MS who get pregnant have taken DMT at some point, and around half of you continue to take DMT into the early stages of pregnancy. We also see that whilst some people do have relapses either during or after pregnancy, there are very few reported overall. Of the relapses that are reported, over 2/3 are mild and the remainder moderate, a finding that we hope is reassuring for people considering pregnancy.

We also find that around 3/4 of people deliver vaginally, with the remainder having cesarean sections, and the birth weights of the babies are, in general, normal. All of the babies on whom we have 12 month follow up data are meeting their expected milestones. Around half of people are exclusively breastfeeding at 3 and 12 months.

This information helps us to build up a more complete picture of pregnancy and post partum decisions in people with MS. Alongside this we are running studies to explore some factors associated with pregnancy in more detail, including a study called PAMMS, which looks at changes in the blood of women with MS who are pregnant, and work to develop better information for women with MS considering pregnancy. If you have MS and are pregnant do think about taking part in these studies via registering through the UK MS Register website.