Any connection between pregnancy and Her2 positive BC?

[Gina]

We have been boucing around a hypothesis about folks who are negative blood carrying a positive blood child tend to have more incidences of her-2 mediated illness than the mean. Did any of your get the rhogam shot while pregnant if you had negative blood and were carrying a positive child???

Just wondering as there could be some connection. We have one gal on the board who gave birth to same blood children, but only got her-2 after giving birth to her last child which was opposite type from her.

So it can go the other way...you can be positive blooded carrying a negative blooded child (but would not require rhogam in this case) and still be in a higher percentage category to come down with her-2 mediated disease than the mean of women always carrying same blood type children)...this is the hypothesis...not proven, you understand...still would be interesting to note of the women who had pregnancies and then her-2 dx, how many carried a child of the opposite blood type than they themselves were..this would equally apply for miscarriages and abortions..too, fyi.

I was A negative blood carrying an A positive child. I also received the rhogam shot early in the pregnancy and upon deliver, and I always felt that my pregnancy was somehow involved in the eventual dx. (I had a c-section).

I, too, while breast feeding, had pain in the same area of my right breast that would eventually be dx with the 5cm ER-PR- her-2+++ tumor, fyi. It would also be interesting to know of all the folks pregnant with the her-2 Dx afterwards..how many breast fed?? I breast fed my son for about 6 months. I was dx with bc several years later, but the breast bothered me from the time I breast fed on...originally, the obgyn said it was just a common breast infection from lactating ducts clogging and when I stopped breast feeding the pain subsided, only to return in the same place a few years later, but this time as full blown breast cancer.

I have read that one possible connection may also have something to do with hiatal hernias which are very common during pregnancy. Any of you folks get those while pregnant?? I did. Interestingly, the site of the opening was less than one cm from the eventual site of the breast tumor and remains the same site where I have one single sternum breast bone met to this day..sighh....

Thanks,
Gina

[Rozebud]

I was also pregnant when diagnosed. I have talked to a lot of pregnant women and there are also several on the YSC web site. Less than half are her2 positive. I agree with the previous poster that it seems like more than pregnant women's fair share are her2+, but it's because it's so much more common in young women. I read somewhere once that in women under 40 who are diagnosed with breast cancer, 25% are either pregnant or within a few years of having a baby. Well, if you think about it.....with women under 40, likely 25% of them in general are either pregnant or a few years post partum at any given time, so that's not really out of line. If 40% of women under 40 are her2 positive, then it would seem like there are many more her2+ pregnant women than the rest of the population.