Cancer Treatment doesn’t harm unborn baby

A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that cancer treatments do not harm unborn children. “Prenatal exposure to maternal cancer with or without treatment did not impair the cognitive, cardiac, or general development of children in early childhood. Prematurity was correlated with a worse cognitive outcome, but this effect was independent of cancer treatment.”

One of the lead researchers of the study, Professor Frédéric Amant, said the following about the findings: “Our results show that fear of cancer treatment is no reason to terminate a pregnancy, that maternal treatment should not be delayed and that chemotherapy can be given. The study also shows that children suffer more from prematurity than from chemotherapy, so avoiding prematurity is more important than avoiding chemotherapy.” Amant’s team examined 129 children born after their mothers underwent cancer treatment while their children were still in utero. Remarkably, radiotherapy, chemotherapy nor surgery harmed the unborn babies. This information led the researchers to believe that women who are pregnant and have cancer should not delay treatment and do not “need” to abort their baby.