الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Pregnancy can cause several alterations in human eye function in healthy condition as well in ocular disease. While many of theses changes are reversible, some may lead to visual impairment.
In preeclampsia, although abnormalities of the conjunctiva, retina and retinal vasculature, choroid, optic nerve, and visual cortex have been reported, the most common ocular finding is constriction of retinal arterioles. Exudative retinal detachment (ERD) has been reported in 0.1–32.4% of patients with preeclampsia. Also, cortical blindness is a rare but well known complication of preeclampsia/eclampsia, occurring in as many as 15% of cases.
Anterior compartment changes during pregnancy include chloasma, decrease in the conjunctival capillaries, increase in the granularity of conjunctival venules, dry eye syndrome and transient accommodative loss. Also, there were reports of corneal melting during pregnancy.
The effects of pregnancy on IOP and glaucoma are not entirely understood. Studies in nonglaucomatous subjects have shown a statistically significant decline in IOP during all trimesters of pregnancy compared with non-pregnant controls.
Many women are diagnosed with or experience recurrence of ocular toxoplasmosis (OT) during pregnancy. Newly diagnosed ocular toxoplasmosis in pregnant women is much less common than is recurrence of toxoplasmic retinochoroiditis.
There are few reports in the literature on the relationship between uveitis and pregnancy, most of them on women with Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada syndrome (VKH).
Pregnancy in a diabetic woman brings about many changes that can lead to the development of diabetic retinopathy (DR) or worsening of pre-existing disease. In some patients this may develop into sight threatening disease which, if not treated adequately, can cause devastating visual impairment.
A pregnant patient with branch retinal arteriolar occlusions have been reported, and was associated with amniotic fluid embolism during abortion or induction of labor.
Pregnancy is considered a risk factor for the development of central serous chorioretinopathy. Central serous chorioretinopathy in pregnant woman is often associated with subretinal exudation which is probably fibrinous in nature.
Dynamic observations of women with peripheral vitreochorioretinal dystrophies showed that the condition progressed during pregnancy in many cases. Decrease of ocular haemodynamics and scleral rigidity were characteristic of pregnancy. The highest incidence of PVCRD progress was observed in pregnant women with the hypokinetic type of systemic hae-modynamics.
Exudative retinal detachments have been well documented to occur during pregnancy; however, reports of rhegmatogenous retinal detachments are rare.
Despite the successful use of contact lenses prior to pregnancy, some women develop contact lens intolerance during pregnancy. The results of refractive eye surgery before, during, or immediately after pregnancy are unpredictable, and refractive surgery should be postponed until there is a stable postpartum refraction.
All anti-glaucoma medications are categorized as class C by the Food and Drug Administration, except brimonidine and nonspecific adrenergic agonists, which belong to class B.
In those patients who need surgery, most local anesthetics may be used safely because they have not been shown to be teratogenic in humans. Antifibrotic agents commonly used adjunctively in trabeculectomy, however, should be avoided. Glaucoma laser procedures, such as laser peripheral iridotomy and laser trabeculoplasty, have been employed without identifiable teratogenic effects or increased risk of side effects for pregnant women.