IgA Nephropathy tends to strike at younger ages than other chronic kidney diseases – sometimes long before or around the time when someone might be thinking about starting a family.
It’s normal to worry about whether you’ll be able to have a safe pregnancy and how IgA Nephropathy might affect your baby and your kidneys.
There is no question that pregnancy and pre-pregnancy might look different for you given the need for advanced planning and added testing. Don’t get discouraged. The good news is that many people with IgA Nephropathy have successful pregnancies. And if the risks seem too high, there are other ways to start or build your family too.
The key is to:
Your healthcare team may include these and other specialists:
Early planning, ideally a full year or more before you’d like to get pregnant, will allow you time to build your team to help you weigh the pros and cons, talk though which medicines are safe to continue and which might need to be stopped, and develop a plan for monitoring your health and kidneys before, during and after pregnancy.
Use our Pre-Pregnancy Planning worksheet to write down information for you and your health care team to talk about together as you begin to think about the future.
Resources
Learn about High-risk pregnancy and read our 10 Tips for Pregnancy and Family Planning, which was developed with input from people who’ve been through the journey of thinking about or having a baby.
