While pregnancy is probably the most beautiful experience of a women’s life, for DES Daughters it is not…
For many reasons (not only medical but also psychological), a DES pregnancy is not like any other pregnancy. DES daughters require high risk obstetric care, early confirmation of pregnancy and psychological support throughout their pregnancy due to an increased risk of complications.
I actually didn’t mind the higher-risk follow up. Since my age was also a complicating factor, and it was my first pregnancy, being extra sure that I was treated as high risk was comforting. I would not go so far as to say that DES ruined my experience of pregnancy, which seems to be what this post implies. However, I would say that DES daughters need to be extra-vigilant in finding high-risk OB-GYN specialists who are familiar with DES. This is increasingly difficult, since most of the DES-exposed population has aged out of child-bearing years. This is a serious impediment to care, since DES presents differently in different people–care providers need to be familiar with a range of DES effects, and that’s increasingly hard to find. The other thing I would add is that daughters should be prepared to expect the unexpected–for instance, I never had an incompetent cervix (which I was prepared for/expected), but DES is the likely cause of the many cysts around my cervix which made labor and delivery much more difficult and lengthy than normal.
snarkmom