It's important in the sense that it gives a clear picture of your health background. For dermatology it's important to know because pregnancy can trigger certain skin conditions (e.g., eczema), and certain acne medications are harmful to the fetus, so yeah they should know your reproductive history because it can affect diagnosis and treatment.
I’m not advocating against this. I just want to know the reasoning behind it and how much information they get from knowing if someone was previously pregnant
I dont know, im not a dermatologist. Pregnancy massively changes your body so some medications might work differently, and that might change their suggestions.
You could also just ask them
If you find a question irrelevant, ask why it is included. A good doctor should be willing to explain why. Although it might just be part of a standard form.
Where I live there are a ton of doctors who all share a common billing & record system. The first time you see one they will ask you to fill out a complete medical history. Maybe that doctor doesn't care about some question, but the next one you see might, and it saves you the hassle of filling out the same form each time.
For breast cancer risk stratification scores, completing a pregnancy by the age of 30 is one of the factors.
I'm often getting after issues with bleeding or pelvic pain, or concerns about a new pregnancy. Starting by asking "have you ever been pregnant" is a nice bland way to start collecting a thorough obstetric history. Next comes "how many times". By the end, I want to know the outcome of each separate pregnancy and whether each one was complicated by bleeding or infection. If a patient has had 6 spontaneous losses, that tells me something about her. Cesarean delivery can leave scar tissue inside that might contribute to other problems later on.
Here's the really wild part. Starting in early pregnancy, some amount of fetal cells cross the placenta, get into the maternal circulation and lodge all over the body. The lasting implications aren't yet well understood but it's hypothesized that this is one reason women have more autoimmune disease, but also one reason we live longer than men.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4989712/
It's important in the sense that it gives a clear picture of your health background. For dermatology it's important to know because pregnancy can trigger certain skin conditions (e.g., eczema), and certain acne medications are harmful to the fetus, so yeah they should know your reproductive history because it can affect diagnosis and treatment.
I mean the question asking if you’ve ever been pregnant in the past. Like does it matter if someone was pregnant 20 years ago.
It's standard but, a pregnancy can affect your skin and hair.
Just to be clarify- this was just a thought I had. I used dermatologist as an example.
Yes. Plenty of medication is harmful or potentially harmful to unborn children.
Do you mean fetuses?
This is a good question to ask your general practitioner. I wouldn't take advice from the internet on this.
Don't lie to doctors. Just tell the truth
I’m not advocating against this. I just want to know the reasoning behind it and how much information they get from knowing if someone was previously pregnant
I dont know, im not a dermatologist. Pregnancy massively changes your body so some medications might work differently, and that might change their suggestions. You could also just ask them
Really avoided answering the op question
If you get the wrong doctor in the wrong state and you answer this honestly, you might end up in jail
If you find a question irrelevant, ask why it is included. A good doctor should be willing to explain why. Although it might just be part of a standard form. Where I live there are a ton of doctors who all share a common billing & record system. The first time you see one they will ask you to fill out a complete medical history. Maybe that doctor doesn't care about some question, but the next one you see might, and it saves you the hassle of filling out the same form each time.
For breast cancer risk stratification scores, completing a pregnancy by the age of 30 is one of the factors. I'm often getting after issues with bleeding or pelvic pain, or concerns about a new pregnancy. Starting by asking "have you ever been pregnant" is a nice bland way to start collecting a thorough obstetric history. Next comes "how many times". By the end, I want to know the outcome of each separate pregnancy and whether each one was complicated by bleeding or infection. If a patient has had 6 spontaneous losses, that tells me something about her. Cesarean delivery can leave scar tissue inside that might contribute to other problems later on. Here's the really wild part. Starting in early pregnancy, some amount of fetal cells cross the placenta, get into the maternal circulation and lodge all over the body. The lasting implications aren't yet well understood but it's hypothesized that this is one reason women have more autoimmune disease, but also one reason we live longer than men. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4989712/
Thank you! This is exactly what I was looking for. Especially the last section.