T3/NDT during pregnancy?

[MikeM46]

Am working on questioning the present assumption in medical circles that in being hypothyroid during pregnancy T3 or NDT should be removed and only T4 be utilised. Please can I ask for a simple yes answer to the question if anyone has successfully been pregnant and delivered a healthy baby on combination T4+T3, or NDT/DTE, or T3 monotherapy? All I need is which form of thyroid medication & the year of birth.  

A swift response preferably by private message/HU chat would be greatly appreciated.“

[radd]

MikeM46,

Sorry you haven't received a quick response. 

I will tag humanbean who has some interesting links to members previous experiences using T3 and NDT during pregnancy. 

I don’t know the UK’s latest stance on using liothyronine during pregnancy but the FDA support using it if already started. 

8 8.1

accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatf...

And Tania Smith from Thyroid Patients Canada has written a great article complete with references entitled  'The Safety of Dosing Desiccated Thyroid (NDT) and T3-T4 Combinations During Pregnancy'. She hasn’t published it on the website yet but it is available under ‘files’ in her Facebook Group.  

[TSH110]

I presume thousands did when NDT was the only thyroid hormone therapy available. I can’t speak from any personal experience bar it seems common sense that NDT would be infinitely preferable to t4 because it’s as close to what our bodies would make if the thyroid worked properly, not just t4.

I hope you get some response to help support what to me seems blindingly obvious.

[humanbean]

Historical info :

From the 1890s (the first time there was any treatment for hypothyroidism in the UK), until the 1960s / 70s the only treatment available - or later on the main treatment available for hypothyroidism - was NDT. Levo was first introduced in the 1960s (I think).

There is no historical evidence that I'm aware of from that era of lots of NDT-treated hypothyroid women being childless as a result of their thyroid condition, nor is there any evidence I'm aware of of there being lots of cases of congenital hypothyroidism amongst the children they did succeed in having.

One bit of propaganda regarding NDT that was extensively used when Big Pharma wanted to sell Levo and get rid of NDT was that Levo was much more strictly controlled and reliable than NDT. But this is shown up as a lie by this link :

web.archive.org/web/2016122...

The above link is from the internet archive and sometimes opens extremely slowly - but it does open eventually.

Medical info :

Bear in mind that when an egg is fertilised that the embryo initially has no thyroid and no placenta. (My embryology knowledge is virtually non-existent, by the way.) The embryo will attach to the mother after implantation and will initially be totally dependent on the mother's thyroid hormones. Then as the pregnancy progresses there will be growth in the placenta and growth in the fetus's own thyroid but during this phase the mother's own thyroid hormones are still essential. The fetus's thyroid is fully developed and starts functioning for itself sometime around 16 - 20 weeks since fertilisation.

Doctors have been known to tell women that T3 can't pass through the placenta to the baby, and that only T4 passes through. I don't know why they think that. There have been successful pregnancies on T3 only. And this idea that T3 doesn't reach the baby's brain is often mentioned on the internet without any references.

This belief also puzzles me because if T4 was the only thyroid hormone getting through to a fetus how is the T4 (a storage hormone) converted by the fetus into T3 (the active thyroid hormone)? I've never seen that mentioned anywhere!

Another puzzle is that when the baby's thyroid is fully developed it will create T3 and will deal with it perfectly well.

Another thing to remember...

Doctors ranting about the supposed dangers of T3 have T3 flowing through their own veins, and they are still alive and able to spew nonsense.

.

This is a case study of a woman who gave birth to her two children using T3 only throughout both pregnancies :

healthunlocked.com/thyroidu...

The above case study is important because it proves that the mother's thyroid hormones (which in this case is T3 only, and test results showed she had miniscule levels of T4 so was producing almost no T4 at all from her own thyroid ) reached the embryo/fetus and worked perfectly in terms of the growth and development of her offspring.

.

Other links that might be helpful :

healthunlocked.com/thyroidu...

healthunlocked.com/thyroidu...

The above link was by member kazzyhoo. You can see her other posts on NDT and her successful pregnancy here :

healthunlocked.com/user/kaz...

healthunlocked.com/thyroidu...

healthunlocked.com/thyroidu......

These are the NICE guidelines on hypothyroidism and they include some sections on pregnancy. Note it isn't mandatory for doctors to follow NICE guidelines :

cks.nice.org.uk/topics/hypo...

I may have more links to add later.

Good luck.

[humanbean]

Doctors have been known to tell women that T3 can't pass through the placenta to the baby, and that only T4 passes through. I don't know why they think that. There have been successful pregnancies on T3 only. And this idea that T3 doesn't reach the baby's brain is often mentioned on the internet without any references.

.

The fetus's thyroid is fully developed and starts functioning for itself sometime around 16 - 20 weeks since fertilisation.

I wrote the above quotes in my previous reply. I've checked out some other links I have and suspect an answer to why doctors believe T3 doesn't cross the placenta is because ...

In a healthy pregnancy the baby is in control of its own thyroid hormones by the middle of a pregnancy i.e. by 20 weeks gestation. It produces the hormones from its own thyroid and controls its own thyroid hormone output with its own pituitary and hypothalamus. It no longer needs thyroid hormones from the mother. So when researchers have tested the placenta of babies who have been born and thus no longer need thyroid hormones from the mother and the placenta, the placenta turns out to have no T3 (or almost none). This kind of testing can't be done during pregnancy because it would most likely kill or severely damage the baby or, at best, would be a stupid risk to the baby to poke needles into the placenta at 10 - 20 weeks through the pregnancy.

If the mother's thyroid hormones were still being used by the baby while its own thyroid was also producing thyroid hormones it would probably lead to babies being born with hyperthyroidism.