PREGNANT and HFI

[sarahk]

Well,

I’m 17 weeks pregnant!

So far, it has been a rough ride. I experienced all the typical symptoms of the first trimester, but couldn’t take any medications, since they all have sugar. The nausea was really bad, and still kinda is. Good thing after 28 years with HFI I’m a pro at throwing up.
My sister-in-law, an OB found one med that is prescribed to chemo/surgery patients for nausea that didn’t have sugar. Well, the brand version didn’t, the generic did. That worked for a few days, but not really well, and all the constipation meds have sugar. I’ll try flaxseed oil as recommended on this site. So, I’m just toughing it out.
Hopefully this explains my long absence from this site.

Not to my surprise, there is almost no medical publications dealing with a pregnant girl with HFI. My husband, an attorney with access to tons of databases could only find two, and my sister-in-law didn’t have much luck either. One article didn’t deal with the pregnant woman’s HFI issue, but her tons of either issues (AIDS) and the other old article dealt with a Swedish family with 6 HFI kids!

I don’t know if it is just the pregnancy or HFI/pregnancy, but was very difficult for me to stay awake past 8:30-9pm. It is like someone drugged me. Maybe it has something to do with my very low blood pressure.

Obviously I can’t take the dig. diabetes test, by drinking sugar water. They’ll have me do some other test where I have to test my blood several times a day.

I was just thinking, wouldn’t it be great if the baby could digest the sugar for me?

Does anyone know of any other HFI gal who went through a pregnancy?

Sarah

[Tammy]

Hey, Sarah!!!
Great news!!!
I don't know how to tell you what is normal, and what is HFI, but I think Kristens idea about the book is a good one. Like she said, maybe it'll help you decide if it's normal. Of course with pregnancies, how does anyone know what's normal? My sister did nothing but throw up for the whole 9 months. And my cousin had 4 girls, and she had the most terrible running nose with all 4. (But only when she was preggo). I'm sure everyone can tell you strange things. Hopefully yours will be smooth sailing from this point on.

We're excited for you, and Kristen, too.
Tammy

[julienc]

Hi! I'm new to this forum. While I haven't been clinically diagnosed yet, I'm certain I also have HFI. My son will be two next month.

I also was not able to do the sugar test for gestational diabetes. I told my doc that there was no way I could drink that stuff without making a mess of the lab. ;D I had to do the longer test where they took two blood samples over a two hour period with a meal in between, and it all checked out okay. The lab was very confused, though, since they had never done that test before. I got the usual weird looks from them when I tried to explain my sugar "aversion". (At the time I did not know about HFI.)

It looks like you may be just about through your pregnancy. I didn't have many complications, but I was severely anemic at one point. Iron suppliments helped with that. My hypoglycemia also kicked in big time during the first trimester. I was very careful when I introduced fruits to my son, but he is able to eat fructose just fine.

Good luck to you!

[Hilda]

Hi Ladies, this a good issue.

I´m 32 years old and always thought that if one day I got pregnant my child would also suffer from the same problem HFI and that my pregnancy would be horrible.

What is the probability of the child having HFI like the mother? I would like to hear more about pregnant women with HFI. Can anyone suggest a web page about this issue.

Looking forward to hearing from your experiences,
Thank you, Kind Regards

[julienc]

Hi Hilda,

Welcome to the forum!

If you have HFI, the father of your kids would also need to be a carrier in order to pass on HFI. If he is a carrier, then your kids would have a 50% chance at it. If he isn't a carrier, then they have no chance of having HFI, but they will be carriers. (They get one HFI gene from you, and a "normal" one from him. It takes two HFI genes to have the symptoms.) Just to follow through with all the possible scenarios, if you AND the father had HFI, then your kids would also have HFI.

Fred posted a really good graphic somewhere on here of these scenarios.

Since this thread was posted, I now have a second child and she is also HFI-free. My brother (who also has HFI) has two kids, and they do not have it, either. However, all of the kids are carries since they all got one "bad" gene from the HFI parent. Being a carrier isn't a problem...it's just important to know for future kids and the possibility of passing it on. The odds of getting HFI are so very very slim. Clearly it is possible (after all, we have it), but it is just a very slim chance.

I wouldn't expect any difficulties from pregnancies related to HFI - other than possible med problems and the diabetes testing mentioned here. But as for actual problems with the pregnancy related to HFI...I can't imagine what that might be. I was lucky and had very smooth pregnancies both times.

No website that I know of - we may be your best resource! LOL. Sarah is also on baby #2, and Milan has at least one child. So, lots of information here if you need it.

-Julie

[Hilda]

Thank you! This is great help! I will keep this in mind..

Yes, I did receive Fred´s graphic, very helpful.

Thank you all for sharing your experiences.

Hilda