Pregnancy and Fibromyalgia and their Interrelationships: A Systematic Review

Fibromyalgia (FM) occurs frequently in women of childbearing age. These patients may become pregnant, and it is essential to know the influence of pregnancy on this disease.

To review the studies of pregnancy in FM.

To systematically search for articles on pregnancy and FM between 1966 and April 2024. No language limitation was used. Scielo, PubMed, and Embase databases were analysed.

Twelve articles with 8,833 patients were found. Patients' ages varied from > 18 to 65 years old. FM patients had a lower number of children and more nulliparity than controls. Studies that analysed FM symptoms during pregnancy found symptom worsening, mainly pain, anxiety, depression, and gestational diabetes, were found to be more common than in controls in 2 papers. Regarding neonatal outcomes, only four studies evaluated these data: two of them found that FM had no adverse effect on the neonate's health. In contrast, the other two found that these babies were more likely to be premature, to have intrauterine growth restriction, and to have low Apgar.

This systematic review demonstrates that pregnancy in FM usually has a bad prognosis since obstetric and FM outcomes are worse during this period. Results of repercussions on the offspring are controversial.