Cancer during the course of pregnancy is something that is uncommon. This is as per the research which stems out of oncology medicine department. For a considerable period of time, medical specialists were not sure on how to cope up with cancer treatment. This entire means that we have more information, about treating and living with cancer during the course of pregnancy. The point is that cancer does have affected the baby directly. But if you have cancer it is complicated both for the mother and the health care team. The need of the hour is to avail the services of a health care provider who has experience in dealing with cancer patients. It is not that most of the cancer is common in pregnancy, but they can occur at any point of time. Examples would include breast cancer, cervical cancer or thyroid cancer to name a few.
Out of the various types of cancer, breast cancer is the most common in case of pregnant women. It tends to effect 1 out of 30,000 women who are pregnant. As the colour along with the texture of the breast changes, it is pretty much hard to detect them during the stage of pregnancy. It is possible that they could be abnormal as well. So when you are pregnant it becomes very difficult to detect breast cancer in comparison to women who are not pregnant.
Figuring out cancer during the course of pregnancy
Understanding or diagnosis of cancer is difficult when you are pregnant. It is because the symptoms in the form of bloating or rectal bleeding are hard to figure out at this juncture. Say for example with the help of a pap test you can find out whether cervical cancer has occurred. As part of pregnancy oncology nursing, an ultrasound is being performed and occurrence of ovarian cancer is detected.
Some of the course of treatments advocated for cancer
Surgery is the most common form of cancer treatment. In this course of treatment the doctors are known to remove the tumour in combination with the healthy tissue. It does go on to pose less form of risk to the baby and is rated to be one among the safest form of treatments during pregnancy
With the help of chemotherapy the doctors try to destroy the cancer cells. In fact the cells stop the ability to grow and then divide. There is a greater risk to the foetus if chemotherapy is provided in the first 3 months of pregnancy. It is at that point of time the organs of the baby are growing and it can lead to a loss of pregnancy or birth defects at the same time.
During the second and third trimester of pregnancy, the doctors are known to administer chemotherapy without any major risks. In the later stages of pregnancy it can cause indirect harm to the mother. One of the potential risks would be increase in blood counts during pregnancy leading to a situation of infections.