In pregnancy complicated with urolithiasis, stones may exist before pregnancy or appear during pregnancy. If you have a history of urinary calculi excretion before pregnancy or pyelonephritis, repeated urinary tract infections and no response to antibiotic treatment, you should be alert to the occurrence of urinary calculi after pregnancy.
Similar to non-pregnant women, the symptoms of stones during pregnancy are mainly colic, hematuria and infection. The difference is that due to the weakening and expansion of ureteral muscle tension during pregnancy, the onset of pain and hematuria is less than that during non-pregnancy, and some may even be asymptomatic. However, if stones cannot be discharged by themselves for a long time, urinary tract infection will occur. Pregnant women may have symptoms such as fever, low back pain, abdominal pain and pyuria. Some patients will have dysuria and urgency.
When pregnancy complicated with urolithiasis, intravenous pyelography or urography is undoubtedly necessary for definite diagnosis. Can exposure to radiation during pregnancy lead to fetal malformation? Generally speaking, radioactive examination should be used with caution during pregnancy, but it is not taboo. Limited urography (only one X-ray is taken every 0/5 minutes after intravenous injection of contrast agent, and multiple X-rays are taken continuously like unconventional pyelography), which does not harm the fetus. Therefore, low-dose radioactive examination is safe. Recently, ultrasonic examination has replaced some radioactive examinations. If a satisfactory diagnosis can be obtained by ultrasound examination, X-ray examination is not needed.
Pregnancy complicated with urolithiasis, as far as the stone itself is concerned, has no effect on the fetus. In order to treat lithiasis, control symptoms and stop infection, it takes a long time to use certain drugs, which may have adverse effects on the healthy development of the fetus and is not conducive to perinatal health care. Therefore, anyone who has found urinary calculi before pregnancy should be actively treated before pregnancy to avoid the troubles caused by urinary calculi.