Pregnancy
The need for thyroid hormones is increased during pregnancy. It is therefore particularly important for pregnant women that their thyroid gland functions normally and produces sufficient thyroid hormones. Even before pregnancy, it is important to ensure that the body is sufficiently supplied with thyroid hormones, as an insufficient supply of the hormones can lead to fertility problems.
An underactive thyroid during pregnancy can and should be treated with an external supply of thyroid hormones. The increased need for hormones during pregnancy can be explained by the fact that the thyroid gland of the foetus is not yet able to produce hormones itself. These are only produced by the fetus itself from the 3rd month of pregnancy onwards. A healthy thyroid gland of the pregnant woman can compensate for this additional requirement. Therapy is therefore only necessary for women who suffer from hypothyroidism.
Normal values
In some cases, the individual thyroid values may be within the normal range even though there is a slight hypothyroidism. If such a case is present, it is medically referred to as latent hypothyroidism. In this case there is an increased TSH value, but the T4 value, and thus the values of the thyroid hormones, are still within the normal range. In these cases, a close monitoring by the attending physician should be carried out, since a manifest disease can always develop at the bottom of a latent hypothyroidism, which then requires a substitution of thyroid hormones.
