Leprosy and childbirth

ABSTRACT

Of 112 leprous women at Aisei-en who have had children, 39 (34.8 per cent) developed the disease during pregnancy or shortly thereafter. In 100 pregnancies that occurred in wommen with leprosy, exacerbation of the disease occured 48 times, the remaining 52 being uneventfull in this respect. Though the initial symptom of leprosy is usually a simple macule, or anesthesia, the symptoms that appear in pregnancy or chilbbirth are usually acute lesions, the so-called "rash", often appearing as numerous active macules and frequently with edematous, erysipelas-like swellings of the face. In the case of abortion there usually is little advance of the disease, though occasionally a case becomes worse in spite of it. It is evident that for women who are in the incubation stage of leprosy, pregnancy and childbirth are liable to precipitate the development of the sisease, and for those who have leprosy childbearing is apt to lead to its exarcebation and extension.