Pregnancy Reduce Rheumatoid Arthritis-1

A new study found that women who have a baby would present less risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis than women without children, although this potentially protective effect would disappear with age.
Rheumatoid arthritis
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) arises when the immune system mistakenly attacks the joints of the knees, causing inflammation, pain and progressive joint damage. It is more common in women than in men, and often appears in the reproductive age.
An estimated 1, 3 million American adults, or 0, 6 percent of the adult population has RA.
Some previous studies, but not all, had indicated that pregnancy reduced the risk of RA.
The cause is unknown, but one theory is that fetal cells pass into the mother during pregnancy, help to lower the risk of generating the disease.
A team of researchers from the Cancer Research Center Fred Hutchinson and the University of Washington in Seattle, analyzed the obstetric records of 310 women newly diagnosed with RA and 1418 women without the condition.
A son and 39% less likely to RA
Those who had given birth at least one child were 39 percent less likely to get RA than those who had never been pregnant, even after considering factors such as age and use of oral contraceptives, which are associated with reduced risk of AR.
But such protection weakened over time, published in Arthritis & Rheumatism team Dr. Katherine A. Guthrie.