I want to ask one question about abortion before I make my point on the original topic of this forum: what about saving the life of the mother if something goes wrong (aka abortion for medical reasons)? Should two lives die at the expense of one? I'm just putting that out there because my grandmother's first pregnancy had to be terminated for medical reasons (she would have died otherwise). After that she had a successful pregnancy and gave birth to my dad, so as backwards as this sounds I'm here today thanks to abortion.
Now for the chemotherapy during pregnancy. I've read that chemotherapy drugs are started at trimester 2, whereas until then in trimester 1 the cancer is treated with surgery for the most part. (1,2). This is because trimester 1 is when the major vital organs are being formed and thus there will be a higher risk of a birth defect (3). As to how the fetus is affected during each trimester by any factors I still have yet to research, but two studies done have shown that both the mother and baby have no side effects from the treatment (3,4), besides a high premature birth rate in one study (4). The only effects on the children were the normal effects seen in prematurely born children. (4) it's not clear yet if there is a correlation between chemotherapy and premature birth, for that more studies will have to be done (4), but personally I find that possibility very probable.
In conclusion, the possibility that chemotherapy is harmful to the fetus is very low.
Some questions I have are, supposing the mother survives to term, how would the fetus be affected by the mother having no treatment? If the mother chose to breast feed, how would that affect the child? Would the child have a higher risk of cancer later on in life? And for the latter question, would there be a difference in the cancer rates between those who had chemotherapy and those who didn't?
Please excuse if I use my effects/affects incorrectly, I'm still unsure when to use each.
(1)http://www.breastcancer.org/tips/fert_preg_adopt/bc_pregnancy/treatment.jsp
(2)http://pregnantwithcancer.org/registries.php
(3)http://www.webmd.com/breast-cancer/news/20080418/breast-cancer-in-pregnancy-chemo-is-ok
(4)http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110926183421.htm
Edit: As to the comment on the first post of this forum:
It is the rate of cancer in general that is going up thanks to harmful pollutants, but as far as I can tell there are no correlations between pregnancy itself and a higher risk of cancer. As for the drug treatment itself it is only initiated if a woman has been diagnosed with cancer during pregnancy as there is no need to treat cancer if there is no cancer, and even then there is a lot of consulting with a doctor. Abortion is an option considered (see the question I posed at the beginning, I think it pertains to this very well) but if the woman decides to carry on the pregnancy despite having cancer, well, you can see the information I provided above.
