Table 2.

Effects of inflammatory arthritis on patients' family planning decisions

Response: Yes, inflammatory arthritis affected the number of children the patient wanted to have (n = 149, 58%)
Concerns	N (%)
Would be unable to care for child	126 (85%)
Antirheumatic drugs would harm a baby	91 (61%)
Child might inherit arthritis	77 (52%)
Arthritis might cause premature death of the patient so that she could not raise her child(ren)	51 (34%)
Arthritis might directly harm a developing baby	47 (32%)
Physician counseled against pregnancy	24 (16%)
Infertility	18 (12%)
Pregnancy loss	15 (10%)
Fear of arthritis flare during or after pregnancy	13 (9%)
History of pregnancy complications	2 (1%)
Response: No, inflammatory arthritis did not affect the number of children the patient wanted to have (n = 96, 37%)
Concerns	N (%)
Had children before arthritis diagnosis	49 (51)
Arthritis does not affect pregnancy decision making	31 (32)
Never wanted children	9 (9)
Plan to adopt or have adopted	8 (8)
Response: Not sure, patient has not yet thought about having children (n = 12, 5%)