Eating Disorders and Pregnancy: The Case of Anorexia

The question of the link between pregnancy and eating disorders is an important question. At the moment, there are few concrete answers for these patients. Despite common fertility challenges, patients who suffer from ED are able to access maternity. ED and pregnancy can either have an easy evolution or experience a lot of trouble. Many studies describe obstetrical and foetal complications (low birthweight, inadequate intra-uterine growth, small head circumference, miscarriage, caesarean section). Those patients are frequently reluctant to address their disease with their specialist, who also often doesn’t know how to screen the signs. The lack of official data to train the specialists further increases these difficulties. However, ED are frequent in the general population and young patients are likely to eventually want to become mothers. It is thus essential to know how to screen those patients early and accurately to improve their treatment and care. Eating disorders impact the pregnancy, the delivery and the postpartum as well as the growth of the baby. It is an important public health problem. The evolution from being a woman to becoming a mother is a difficult one, and even more so when the women is suffering from ED. Those patients must handle their nutritional fears, the anxiety about their body changing with pregnancy and the daily challenges. The early interactions with their baby have consequences on their development. It seems necessary to evaluate how to improve the screening and the patient care in ED patients. Screening should begin from the pregnancy desire to the postpartum. This patient care should be based on a multidisciplinary care team.