Many women with inflammatory bowel disease have concerns about their fertility and the effect of their disease and IBD medications on pregnancy and conception.
The IBD Centre of BC created this clinic to try to allay concerns and misconceptions through education, counselling and outstanding care from experts in IBD and pregnancy.
If you are a woman of childbearing age with a diagnosis of IBD and living in British Columbia, and you want to explore the possibility of becoming pregnant or you are already pregnant, The IBD Centre of BC Pregnancy Clinic & Registry is for you.
Pregnancy is a safe option for women whose IBD is in remission, who are on treatment and who are otherwise healthy. That said, IBD is a chronic condition that presents inherent pregnancy risks. For example, some women can experience increased disease activity during pregnancy. In those cases, our multidisciplinary team of IBD specialists is here to provide appropriate treatment and monitoring so that you can have the healthiest outcome possible.
For the most part, no. Although many women with inflammatory bowel disease worry about pregnancy, the vast majority of IBD pregnancies can be just like those of other women. At The IBD Centre of BC Pregnancy Clinic & Registry, we have helped deliver more than 100 healthy babies to mothers with IBD. Our team of medical professionals has the expertise, experience, and tools to help dispel some of the myths around pregnancy and IBD. We will partner with you through every stage of your pregnancy — from preconception through pregnancy and the post-partum period.
Typically, patients are referred to our clinic from their primary gastroenterologist. Ideally, we like to meet patients before they become pregnant in order to make sure they are as healthy as possible and in remission before they conceive. We also accept pregnant IBD patients in any trimester.
Once you are referred to our clinic, our multidisciplinary team will care for you. The team includes a gastroenterologist with a specialty in IBD and pregnancy, an obstetrician with special training in IBD, an IBD nurse and a trainee internist or gastroenterologist with a focus on maternal and fetal medicine. You will also have access to other specialists at The IBD Centre of BC such as a dietitian and psychologist.
Your first visit
While we do see expectant mothers who live in remote areas through telehealth, we prefer the first meeting with our doctors to be in-person at our Vancouver location. This office visit usually takes between 80-120 minutes. At this appointment:
Follow-up visits
During your pregnancy, you will have regular follow-up appointments with the gastroenterologist, obstetrician and/or other IBD Centre of BC team members. These take place every trimester or possibly more often, depending on your health. Follow-up appointments are approximately 15-30 minutes long and take place at the Vancouver clinic or via telehealth if you live in a remote area.
Post-partum appointments
Once you have delivered, we follow up with a post-partum visit by our team. While you will be discharged back into the care of your primary gastroenterologist after the post-partum visit, you are welcome to come back to the clinic for any subsequent pregnancies.
Part of our mandate is to improve the care and outcomes for IBD pregnancies, and that involves research. As such, we ask our patients to consent to join our registry so that we can analyze data from their pregnancy. The registry is completely confidential and anonymous, and the data we gather is invaluable to helping us understand how our patients and their babies do over time.
We’ve got an informative article for you to read about IBD pregnancy nutrition written by our dietitian. Take a look!
