I Am Pregnant, High TSH. Taking Medicine. Will My Baby Be Affected If Thyroid Is Now Under Control?

Posted on Wed, 26 Sep 2012

Question: hi, i conceived in april and had tsh/t4 taken in may. results were normal t4 and tsh 12 so they upped my dose by 25mcg (i was already recieving 125mcg), they did not call me bak to get the new levels checked...at 18 weeks i was tsh 22! they have since upped my dose again by a further 25mcg for which i am awaiting results...will my baby be effected if the thyroid remains under control from now to term or will the damage have already been done and what are the statistics etc that my baby will be ok? i am now nearly 23 weeks. thank you

Answered by Dr. Rahul Tawde (2 hours later)

Dear XXXXXXX
baby cannot produce enough thyroid hormone on its own for 1st 20 weeks of pregnancy. So it is dependent on the mother. This is when the maximum impact of untreated hypothyroidism occurs. There are no prospective studies on the probability of adverse outcomes in such scenarios because of ethical issues. All that can be said is that there is a higher chance of a baby born being with low IQ. That doesnot mean all the impact has already occured. IF you are still undertreated from now on the chances of low IQ and the extent of its subnormality increase. So dont worry about things which are not in your/our hand. 25 mcg increase would not do much to bring TSH down from 22 to less than 3 as is recommended. I recommend that ur dose be increased by atleast 100 mcg. Take it esrly morning empty stomach. Donot take anything for next 1 hour including coffe and tea.
I hav seen few patients whose TSH values wer much higjer than urs delivering an apparently normal baby with normal IQ. But some otjers kids did hav a little low IQ so notjing is absolute. Ther are no good predictors of IQ outcomes on the basis of which we can say what is tje likely IQ outcome.
So dont worry too much. Just hope for the best.
Shivaprasad

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar

Follow up: Dr. Rahul Tawde (37 minutes later)

hi, how low an iq are we talking because it's all abit vague, are we talking a few points or are we talking about him not being able to live a normal life and being mentally/physically disabled? my new results from the 25mcg increase are tsh 4.1 and t4 19.4, but it's only XXXXXXX two weeks since i started taking the new dose so i'm having it checked again in 2 weeks and will take it from there. thanks

Answered by Dr. Rahul Tawde (16 hours later)

we are talking about few points any where ranging from 2-8 points depending on the severity of deficiency to the baby. I still feel you need to increase by atleast 75mcg right away rather than waiting for 2 more weeks.
Shivaprasad

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar