Women’s stress hormone levels are lowered after giving birth, weakening their immune systems, which increases the likelihood of some diseases, according to a study.
The study was conducted by researchers at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute of Arthritis, Musculoskeletal and Kidney Diseases.
In pregnant women who have either multiple sclerosis or rheumatoid arthritis, symptoms may ease up or even disappear during the third trimester of pregnancy, said researchers.
However, after the women give birth, their symptoms often return. And pregnant women who do not have either disorder may develop one of them within a year of giving birth, researchers said.
“This finding has important implications for understanding why immune disorders may subside during pregnancy, but flare up again after birth,” researchers say.
Researchers found that certain stress hormones were two to three times higher in a woman’s third trimester of pregnancy than after she had given birth.
The most well known of the hormones, norepinephrine, is involved in the “fight or flight” response, in which strength and reflexes are enhanced to escape or deal with a possible threat, reported the authors.
Other research has shown that these stress hormones hinder the production of immune system hormones, the authors wrote.
“After birth, the supply of (stress hormones) plummets and the levels of the two immune hormones rise sharply,” researchers said. “This appears to result in a ‘rebound’ effect that could exacerbate disorders like rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis.”
In one earlier study, researchers found that an abrupt drop in stress hormones after birth resulted in post-partum depression in some women.
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