pregnancy

[leesa1]

Hi there. I will be starting medical school at Wayne State Univ. this August and so will be taking gross anatomy until December. My question is that I plan to become pregnant after gross anatomy is over, and realize that I need to wait for the toxins from the lab to get out of my system since it will affect the fetus in the first trimester. Does anyone know how long it will take for the toxins to get out of my system after the class has ended? Your input is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Lisa

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[Guitarzan the Jungle Man]

Hey good luck next year. I think that first year would be a great time to start a family...just realize that third year is much more time consuming AWAY from home than the first two, but I say go for it.
About your gusestion...I am not sure there is an answer to that. Formalyn typically has a rather short half life, but I am unsure of the route it would take to get into the body (inhalation, contact, etc.) If I were you I would find a MSDS for formalyn and read up--any lab that uses it will have one. While in the labe were gloves and a mask if possible. But other than that, formalyn probably wouldn't hang around in your body more than a few hours.
Hope this helps

 

[Freeeedom!]

Why not ask your OBGYN? And, you may wish to make sure what preservative YOUR individual medical school uses for the cadavers...not all are the same. At that point, I would encourage you to not use the term "toxins"... since that term means very little.

 

[ckent]

I don't think that there should be any problems that arise from being pregnant during anatomy lab, our class was never told that taking anatomy was a contraindication to getting pregnant. If you are really worried about it though and nobody gives you what you perceive to be a sufficient answer, I might just recommend that you wait until after you have 3 menstrual periods before you try to conceive. That's how long you are supposed to wait after taking this teratogenic drug that I just learned about, so if 3 cycles is long enough for that, it's probably long enough for some anatomy vapors.

 

[rubyness]

It's interesting, this topic came up today in our class. A fellow first year is pregnant, and the anatomy teacher asked her if she had been pregnant during gross lab, and she said she had. She was in her first trimester then, and did not use any special masks or other precautions. The teacher said that a fellow anatomy teacher had been pregant and working in the labs and everything was fine. She mentioned that because historically there have been so few pregnant women in the gross labs in general, that not much has been done to figure out what to do as far as precautions to take.

I'm not encouraging you to do nothing, I'm just sharing this story that came up today. If it was me, I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable in the lab without a protective mask.