Pregnancy experience in women with spinal muscular atrophy: a case series

Abstract

Many women with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) types II, III, and IV reach fertile age, and some of them may consider pregnancy. However, limited data are available about the potential effects of pregnancy on the course of SMA and the outcomes of pregnancies in these patients. Furthermore, the use of several disease-modifying therapies for the treatment of all types of SMA is expected to increase the number of female SMA patients considering pregnancy in the coming years. The aim of this report is to provide clinicians with an overview of the patients in our cohort who have experienced pregnancies. We conducted a retrospective analysis on these women, through the administration of a questionnaire, which investigated how they experienced the different stages of the pregnancy. Ten patients (3 SMAII; 7 SMA III) participated in the survey; 40% had pregnancies for a total of nine, six of which were term-pregnancies. The mean age of first pregnancy was 32.5 ± 7.8 years for SMA II patients, and 30.5 ± 2.1 years for SMA III. All pregnancies ended in cesarean sections. Interestingly, the sitters had more frequent complications in pre-term labor and delivery, but the newborns were all healthy. This report shows that a successful pregnancy is possible in female patients with SMA. However, the ideal approach should involve a standardized multidisciplinary team capable of effectively addressing every possible scenario. For this reason, it is critically important that clinicians working with SMA patients gain more in-dept knowledge about this topic.

Keywords: SMA; motherhood; multidisciplinary; outcomes; pregnancy.