For female participants with myasthenia gravis, pregnancy was not associated with an increased risk of severe flare-ups of the disease or new or worsening symptoms, according to a study published in the journal May 13, 2026. Neurology®Medical Journal of the American Academy of Neurology. For a small number of people, the postpartum period up to the first year of life is associated with an increased risk of severe relapse.
Myasthenia gravis is an autoimmune disease that causes muscle weakness. Affects voluntary muscles. Symptoms include droopy eyelids, double vision, slurred speech or low volume, difficulty chewing or swallowing, and muscle weakness in the neck, arms, and legs.
This is great news for women with myasthenia gravis, as small studies to date have had conflicting results and many women choose not to have children during or after pregnancy for fear of worsening the disease. It is reassuring that pregnancy did not lead to an increase in severe flare-ups, and for the majority of women, the same was true in the months after giving birth. ”
Anna Rostedt Punga, MD, PhD, Research Author, Uppsala University, Sweden
This study investigated whether female participants with myasthenia gravis during pregnancy were hospitalized for the disease during pregnancy and the year following, and compared it with whether or how often they were hospitalized in the year before pregnancy.
Researchers looked at a registry of myasthenia gravis patients in Sweden. They looked at the records of female participants whose pregnancies reached at least 22 weeks from 1987 to 2019.
A total of 112 participants with 176 pregnancies took part in the study.
The researchers found that participants were no more likely to be hospitalized with the disease during pregnancy than in the year before pregnancy. Among those who were actually hospitalized, there was no increased risk of prolonged hospitalization during pregnancy.
The overall risk of hospitalization did not increase during the first year after delivery. However, those who were hospitalized had longer hospital stays compared to the year before pregnancy.
Nineteen of the 16 participants (11%) required at least one hospitalization for myasthenia gravis within the first year of life, compared with 12 of the 11 participants (7%) in the year before pregnancy.
After adjusting for other factors that may influence the risk of relapse, such as participants’ duration of illness, the researchers found that women were five times more likely to relapse in the postpartum period than in the year before pregnancy.
“Nearly 90% of women had no hospitalization for myasthenia gravis during the first year of life,” Rostedt-Punga said. “For them, it is important to note that of the 16 women who required hospitalization during the postpartum period, more than half, nine, had at least one additional pregnancy that did not require hospitalization, indicating that worsening of these conditions is not a foregone conclusion.”
A limitation of this study is that it only included flares that required hospitalization or increased medication, so information about milder flares was not collected.
This research was supported by the Erling Persson Foundation and the Uppsala Region.
sauce:
American Academy of Neurology
Reference magazines:
O’Connor, L. others. (2026). Risk of worsening myasthenia gravis during pregnancy and postpartum. Neurology. DOI: 10.1212/wnl.0000000000218082. https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000218082
