Up to 80% of women may have fibroids in their lifetime. However only 1 in 4 will experience symptoms. Many women with fibroids will go on to have successful pregnancies. But fibroids are sensitive to the hormonal changes during pregnancy and will grow rapidly. This can pose a danger to the mother and baby due to the likelihood of bleeding, miscarriage and difficulty giving birth. Fibroids during pregnancy need to be very closely monitored.
In the cases where the uterus is significantly deformed by fibroids or the fibroids are located near the cervix or fallopian tubes, they may interfere with the ability to become pregnant in the first place especially with blood flow being diverted away from he healthy uterus. So if you are planning pregnancy and you find out you have fibroids, it’s extremely important that you talk to a specialist experienced in treating fibroids. If your fibroids are deforming your uterus or are located in areas that anatomically interfere with embryonic implantation, egg fertilization or baby delivery, you probably need to consider treatment,
In choosing treatment in these situation, chances are you will be offered myomectomy. DON’T, First ask about the least invasive approved procedure. That is fibroid embolization. WHY? Because myomectomy leaves scars in the uterus, leaves pieces of tissue behind that rapidly regrow into fibroids within months. That is the reason why recurrence after myomectomy is at a whopping 30%!! Furthermore, myomectomy will weaken the walls of the uterus leading to risk of difficult delivery.
So to summarize, if you have symptomatic fibroids, get evaluated by an expert like our doctors. If you have symptomatic fibroids and desire to become pregnant, especially if you do not want any incisions or significant downtime, then strongly consider fibroid embolization. While the procedure was not designed as an infertility cure, many women who could not conceive before embolization were able to do so after the procedure. This is because embolization shrinks fibroids and with that greatly decreases the associated risks.
