Question
I am working on a paper that is looking at previous abdominal surgical and/or musculoskeletal scarring in a woman and its possible affects on fertility and complications during pregnancy such as in-uterine constraint.  Since you have been in practice a while and you have exposure to many different disciplines - I thought that you may have had a case or two that may correlate with this issue or know of someone that has and if you felt that there may be a possible connection and why or why not?

Answer
Hi Jenny,

It certainly is a possibility; this all depends of course on the extent of the abdominal invasion, the individual抯 genetic predilection for scar tissue formation and other factors. Personally, fertility issues are not brought up in an orthopedic practice but certainly, the above issues can make or break fertilization and full term success of the pregnancy. So there would definitely be a connection, it would totally depend on the level of scar tissue and extent of the procedure. There are a lot of individual case by case possibilities to consider. A fertility doc might give specific clinical examples; it might be worth a try.

Thanks for asking,

Dr. Timothy Durnin