What is the importance of family planning in multiple sclerosis? A study in the Brazilian population

Introduction: Multiple Sclerosis is a disease of young females at a reproductive age. Objective: discuss family planning in the context of providing care for women with MS. Method: patients with Multiple Sclerosis, female, aged between 18 and 45 years, from 01/Nov/2021 to 16/Jan/ 2022 participated, all of whom answered a questionnaire made available on the Google forms platform. Results: A total of 233 responses were validated. Most patients discuss family planning during their medical care (61.4 %), use low-efficacy contraceptive methods (68.7 %) and do not plan to become pregnant (70.1 %). There is a high rate of use of disease-modifying treatments (88.9 %). Among those who had already become pregnant, most of them became pregnant before diagnosis and were statically younger than patients who became pregnant after diagnosis. Conclusion: Family planning should be discussed early on and be actively initiated by the health care professional assisting the patient and incorporated into the routine consultation. We suggest efforts should be put into ensuring a decrease in the rate of unplanned pregnancy in this population. Also, it is crucial to guarantee effective contraception in patients who express the wish not to become pregnant and are using disease-modifying treatments.