LASIK and pregnancy
Are you pregnant or planning to become pregnant? Are you breastfeeding? If so, you are not a good LASIK candidate until after these activities are finished.
Dr. Penno does thorough screening of potential LASIK patients and two of the questions always asked of women is whether they are pregnant or lactating.
To have excellent LASIK results, you have to be as good a candidate as possible, within the parameters of safety and effectiveness. During pregnancy certain hormones are produced which make many changes in the body, and one of them is increased fluid retention. Most pregnant women experience some degree of fluid retention but may not realize that it occurs in the eye’s lens as well as in the ankles and other areas.
Reasons to Wait for Your LASIK
- Swelling in the lens causes increased myopia (nearsightedness) and sometimes also astigmatism. In some cases it can cause hyperopia (farsightedness). A vision correction done while swelling is present would not be accurate after the swelling subsided.
- Drugs used during LASIK are antibiotic eyedrops to prevent infection and cortisone eyedrops to reduce inflammation. A mild sedative may also be used to help you relax. These will all enter the bloodstream and could therefore affect the baby. It is not known whether they enter the milk also, but why take the risk?
- Pregnancy causes some dryness in the eyes. LASIK also causes dryness during recovery. If you went into your LASIK procedure already having dry eyes and then compounded that with the post-surgical dryness you could develop Dry Eye Syndrome which is chronic.
If you are pregnant or lactating, and would like to learn more about LASIK and whether it would be a good option for you later, by all means contact us. We will be happy to explain things, answer your questions and examine your eyes. Then when you are ready for LASIK we can continue the candidate screening and choose the best procedure for your individual eyes.
