Update on the Management of Inflammatory Bowel Disease during Pregnancy and Breastfeeding

Abstract

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) affects patients during their peak reproductive years. This raises important questions, in both patients and healthcare providers, regarding conception, pregnancy, and breastfeeding. Lack of information and insufficient communication among healthcare providers can leave patients with limited information and even contradictory advice. Given the fact that pregnant and/or breastfeeding IBD patients are excluded from clinical studies the evidence on many questions related to pregnancy and postpartum period is limited. However, there exists increasing data from case series and cohort studies that allows to provide clinical guidance. The overarching concept is that optimizing the mother's health is critical for optimizing the health of the unborn child and benefit of continuing medical therapy in IBD during pregnancy outweighs possible risks in most instances. This paper provides an up-to-date systematic review of the literature on IBD in pregnancy and proposes guidance to questions frequently encountered by healthcare professionals.