Having babies may up your risk for needing joint replacements later on
November 4, 2008 by Marijke Durning, RN
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
What do having babies and hip replacements have in common? Well, it seems that the more babies a woman has, the higher her risk gets for having to have a joint replacement later in life. (Maybe someone should warn Michelle Duggar?? And the Duggars’ 18th baby is a….)
In a study of over 1 million women done in the United Kingdom, women who had children were compared with women who never had children. The results showed that with each child, a woman’s risk of needing a hip replacement later on rose by 2% and a knee replacement by 8%.
There also seemed to be a bit of a connection between age of first menstruation and joint replacements. If a woman began menstruating before the age of 11 years, she had a 9% higher risk of needing a hip replacement later and a 15% higher risk of needing a knee replacement, compared with women who began their periods after the age of 11.
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Image: iStock.com
Tags: chronic pain blog, pain blog, knee replacement, joint replacement, hip replacement, having babies
I believe it. I began having terrible pain when 6 months pregnant with my second. I was put on Vidodin a month later, and now more than 5 years later I’m still on it. It took years to determine I had injured an important spinal joint that connects my spine and hip, but unfortunately it’s not a joint that can just be replaced. Thankfully my knees are in decent shape!
Ummm, I’m sure you know I meant Vicodin, and no, I’m not on it right now LOL.
Hi Diane, many women end up with pain like that after having been pregnant. When we’re pregnant, our ligaments get loose to prepare us for childbirth. Unfortunately, sometimes our body forgets to go back to “normal” though and we end up hurting big time.
Yep. I was diagnosed with Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction. I was already having spine/disc issues before pregnancy, as I inherited my mother’s severe disc degeneration, so I think my body just couldn’t handle the final pregnancy.
There are experimental surgeries right now for SJD, but they’re just that–experimental. I’m hopeful that someday denervation (sp?) will be proven a good procedure, because I sure don’t like dealing w/ chronic pain and being reliant upon painkillers.