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The thyroid may enlarge slightly in healthy women during pregnancy, but not enough to be felt. These changes do not affect the pregnancy or unborn baby. Yet, untreated thyroid problems can threaten pregnancy and the growing baby. Symptoms of normal pregnancy, like fatigue, can make it easy to overlook thyroid problems in pregnancy. [1]
Thyroid disease in pregnancy can affect the health of the mother as well as the child before and after delivery. [1] Thyroid disorders are prevalent in women of child-bearing age and for this reason commonly present as a pre-existing disease in pregnancy , or after childbirth. [ 2 ]
Congenital iodine deficiency syndrome (CIDS), also called cretinism, [2] is a medical condition present at birth marked by impaired physical and mental development, due to insufficient thyroid hormone production (hypothyroidism) often caused by insufficient dietary iodine during pregnancy.
These changes may contribute to maternal behaviour during pregnancy and for a year after birth. They could also impact maternal-foetal bonding and the mother’s response to her baby’s cues.
A first-of-its-kind case study has highlighted the ways in which the brain changes throughout pregnancy, including decreases in gray matter volume, and increases in white matter.
The increase in kidney clearance during pregnancy causes more iodide to be excreted and causes relative iodine deficiency and as a result an increase in thyroid size. Estrogen-stimulated increase in thyroid-binding globulin (TBG) leads to an increase in total thyroxine (T4), but free thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3) remain normal.
During pregnancy, the thyroid gland must produce 50% more thyroid hormone to provide enough thyroid hormone for the developing fetus and the expectant mother. [29] In pregnancy, free thyroxine levels may be lower than anticipated due to increased binding to thyroid binding globulin and decreased binding to albumin.
The testicles descend during prenatal development in a two-stage process that begins at eight weeks of gestation and continues through the middle of the third trimester. During the transabdominal stage (8 to 15 weeks of gestation), the gubernacular ligament contracts and begins to thicken. The craniosuspensory ligament begins to break down.