Laser eye surgery and pregnancy

[monkey36]

Has anyone had laser eye surgery when pplanning or expecting to get pregnant? Has anyone had eye surgery and then found out that they are pregnant ( within 2 months) after surgery - did this affect your vision ?

BW Monkey36

I don't think they will do it if you are pregnant - certainly they wouldn't do my friend's until she had finished breastfeeding for a certain amount of time.

I think it would be a very silly thing to do if you knew you were pregnant - for one thing, pregnancy can temporarily affect your eyesight, so the machines measuring your precise prescription won't be reading the precise prescription you are likely to stabilise to after the pregnancy and breastfeeding, so you are increasing the chances of having an inaccurate and unsatisfactory result. Also, as part of the treatment you are given steroid drops and antibiotics, things you shouldn't knowingly be taking while pregnant if you don't have to (people are also often given a valium prior to the procedure, to help relax them, and lots of local anaesthetic to make the hideous pressure on your eyeballs and cutting into the cornea etc, bearable). And then there's the fact that lots of people get drier eyes while pregnant, exacerbating a problem laser eye surgery causes in a lot of people during the first few months and which can both slow down the recovery period and be intensely uncomfortable (not to mention, if your eyes become severely dry, significantly affect the quality of your vision and be difficult to treat). Of course, I'm sure a lot of people have found out that they were in the early stages of pregnancy when they had laser eye surgery and have got away with it, but knowing me, if I went on to have anything other than a 100% healthy baby with no developmental problems, I would always feel guilty about all the things I did during pregnancy that, even if only theoretically, could have had a negative effect, so wouldn't want to give myself the opportunity to feel guilt.

I think it would be silly to have elective surgery while pregnant (obviously life saving surgery is different). If something went wrong with the pregnancy you would always wonder if the surgery was the cause. if you are desperate to have it done, book it for when AF is due so you know you are not pg, or delay TTC. As the previous poster said, many women find their prescription changes in pregnancy, so any surgery might not give the long term result you wanted.

Thank you both - I have decided to to defer laser eye treatment. I needed to hear some common sense.