I have posted about this before, but I just got the most recent information on this at ECTRIMS 2011 conference: accidental exposure to disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) for multiple sclerosis (MS) does not seem to harm the unborn babies. (Check out the blog that I wrote for the National MS Society: Exposure to disease-modifying therapy during pregnancy: How worried should we be?)
However, I learned something else about this. Which DMT a pregnant woman is exposed to does actually seem to have an effect on the new mom after delivery. Turns out that those women who took Copaxone during pregnancy had a lower relapse rate than controls (the women who took nothing) after pregnancy, while the women who took interferons (Avonex, Rebif or Betaseron) had a higher relapse rate than the control group after pregnancy.
So, where does the research on exposure to DMTs during pregnancy get us? At the very least, it seems to tell us that accidental exposure to your MS DMTs before you know you are pregnant should be nothing to worry about, so take that off your list of stressors.
Besides the baby, however, is what is good for the moms – both during pregnancy and afterwards. As someone who had a pretty severe relapse when my twins were 3 weeks old, I can tell you that both the relapse and the course of Solu-Medrol contributed greatly to my exhaustion, making it impossible to care for my infants and sending the stress level in the house through the roof. All of this occurred at what would be a fragile time for any new family.