Thyroid disease affects about 27 million adults in the United States. One of the most common forms of thyroid disease is a condition known as hypothyroidism. Unfortunately, many are not only unfamiliar with the condition but also unaware that they are suffering from it! Dana Trentini, Hypothyroid Mom, was among the countless individuals with under-treated thyroid disease and that led to a heartbreaking miscarriage. Read Dana’s story about how she used the tragic event to spur her on to learn what she needed to know about the disease and share her knowledge to millions of followers at HypothyroidMom.com.
On a cold snowy day in New York City in January 2009, I lay on a medical exam table on what would be one of the worst days of my life. I had miscarried at 12 weeks and was being prepared for a D&C, a surgical procedure to remove my baby. A technician had just taken an ultrasound and walked out of the room to reconfirm to the medical staff that my fetus had no heartbeat. I sprang off my bed and ran to the image on the screen. I felt my body shake and my fists clench as I stared at the image of my unborn child. From a place deep in my soul came a wail.
What happened to my child?
I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, an underactive thyroid, the year following the birth of my first son in 2006. I struggled day to day with a fatigue that hit me like an avalanche of bricks. I trusted my doctors and followed their thyroid drug protocol to the letter never once thinking they might not know everything there was to know about hypothyroidism. I trusted them as the experts especially when I became pregnant that second time.
I would later learn that my Ivy League medical school trained and top awarded doctors in New York City did not know enough about hypothyroidism, especially the dangers of hypothyroidism and pregnancy. Under their care, my TSH (thyroid-stimulating hormone), the gold standard for measuring thyroid function in mainstream medicine, reached levels far above the pregnancy recommended reference range and endangered my baby’s life.
What Can Cause A Miscarriage – Hypothyroidism, And Pregnancy
A study presented June 2012 at The Endocrine Society’s 94th Annual Meeting in Houston recommended that all pregnant women should undergo thyroid screening in the first trimester of pregnancy. The study was conducted on 1,000 pregnant women in their first trimester in Ludhiana in Punjab, India. According to the study’s lead author Jubbin Jagan Jacob, M.D., “The study found that even mild thyroid dysfunction could greatly increase the risk of serious problems. Women with mild thyroid dysfunction had double the risk of miscarriage, premature labor, or low birth weight as compared to pregnant women with normal thyroid function. They also had a seven times greater risk of stillbirth.”
In the Journal of Medical Screening, researchers in a large study of 9,400 pregnant women demonstrated that pregnant women with hypothyroidism had a second-trimester miscarriage risk four times the risk of women who were not hypothyroid.
According to a 2008 study in the Indian Journal of Medical Sciences, hypothyroidism has a statistically significant relationship with recurrent pregnancy loss in the first trimester. According to researchers: “Thyroid hormones are essential for the growth and metabolism of the growing fetus. Early in pregnancy the mother supplies her fetus with thyroid hormones. If the mother is hypothyroid, she cannot supply her fetus with enough thyroid hormones. Hence hypothyroidism is a risk factor for pregnancy loss.”
The 2007 Endocrine Society’s clinical guidelines for the Management of Thyroid Dysfunction during Pregnancy and Postpartum includes the following recommendations:
- If hypothyroidism has been diagnosed before pregnancy, thyroid hormone replacement medication dosage should be adjusted to reach a TSH level not higher than 2.5 mIU/L prior to pregnancy.
- If overt hypothyroidism is diagnosed during pregnancy, thyroid function tests should be normalized as rapidly as possible to TSH levels of less than 2.5 mIU/L in the first trimester (or 3 mIU/L in the second and third trimester).
Throughout my first trimester, my TSH remained higher than the above recommended 2.5 mIU/L, soaring close to 10.0 mIU/L. Despite my raging hypothyroidism symptoms, my doctor said that everything was fine and that TSH was only a concern in pregnancy above 10.0 mIU/L.
My doctor clearly never read the 2007 Endocrine Society clinical guidelines for pregnancy.
My doctor tried to assure me there was no link between hypothyroidism and miscarriage, but my instincts told me they were wrong.
I failed to listen to my instincts and I paid a heavy price.
As the medical staff prepared me for my D&C that fateful day, I vowed that I would do everything in my power to research everything there was to know about hypothyroidism and tell women everywhere.
You may wonder why I created Hypothyroid Mom.
Here I am a woman with zero blogging experience. I never used Twitter or Facebook ever before the start of Hypothyroid Mom. What in the world am I doing creating a blog?
Here’s the real reason I’ve created Hypothyroid Mom: pure rage.
That babies are being needlessly harmed from medical lack of awareness about thyroid disease is unacceptable.
I failed to protect my child and I have to live with that regret for the rest of my life.
I can’t go back in time and change things no matter how much I wish it.
What I can do is save babies all around the world, in memory of my child.
