Pregnancy comes with a lot of doctor’s appointments, countless trips to The Velveteen Rabbit for toys and clothes and tons of advice on what you should and shouldn’t do to stay healthy during this period. One thing to consider if you have allergies is how you’ll manage them safely throughout your pregnancy. An area of allergy treatment that people frequently ask about is immunotherapy.
What is Allergy Immunotherapy?
Allergy immunotherapy is a long-term treatment that slowly desensitizes your immune system to certain allergens. During the process, you’ll receive gradually increasing doses of a specific allergen for about six months and then the same dose for three to five years.
Is Allergy Immunotherapy Pregnancy-Safe?
A 2015 literature review[1] found that continuing allergy immunotherapy while pregnant was safe. The results of that 2015 review were backed up by a 2022 study[2] found that no adverse pregnancy outcomes from continuing allergy immunotherapy.
If you started allergy immunotherapy before pregnancy, it is generally safe to continue. If you tend towards severe reactions to the shots or drops, we may recommend you discontinue the treatment for the duration of your pregnancy. If that’s the case, you will likely need to go back a few steps in your treatment to ease your body back into the doses.
While the above studies haven’t found adverse reactions to starting immunotherapy during pregnancy, they indicate the need for more research on the subject. In general, we don’t recommend starting immunotherapy while pregnant because we can’t be certain how your body will react to the doses.
If you’re pregnant and have questions about the safety of immunotherapy, reach out to one of our specialists at Hampton Roads ENT ~ Allergy.
[1] Oykhman, P., Kim, H. L., & Ellis, A. K. (2015). Allergen immunotherapy in pregnancy. Allergy, asthma, and clinical immunology : official journal of the Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 11, 31. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13223-015-0096-7
[2] Mitselou, N., Stephansson, O., Melén, E., & Ludvigsson, J. F. (2022). Exposure to Allergen-Specific Immunotherapy in Pregnancy and Risk of Congenital Malformations and Other Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes. The journal of allergy and clinical immunology. In practice, 10(6), 1635–1641.e2. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaip.2022.03.005