Christina Applegate's Pregnancy After Cancer Treatment Isn't Risky
Experts say pregnancy after cancer treatment is safe.
July 29. 2010 -- After beating breast cancer, actress Christina Applegate will soon move on to perhaps her most challenging role yet: motherhood.
The former sitcom star, 38, has announced that she is expecting her first child, coming two years after she underwent a double mastectomy in July 2008.
She told "Good Morning America" a month after the surgery that she was "100 percent" cancer-free.
While Applegate may be one of the most high-profile women to get pregnant after undergoing breast-cancer treatment, she certainly isn't alone.
Susan Cacioppo of Port Washington, N.Y., found herself in a similar situation several years ago.
Susan was diagnosed with a serious form of breast cancer in 1996 when she was 32.
"I had 25 positive lymph nodes with cancer," Cacioppo said.
After surgery and several months of chemotherapy, her doctor told her that if she could still have a child after the chemotherapy she had, she would have to wait five years before getting pregnant.
"I went for scans every year," she said. "They were always looking for cancer and, fortunately, I was always good."
The five-year mark came and she decided she was ready to try for a second child.
"It was always in the back of my mind that I wanted to have a baby," she said. "My son wanted a brother or sister."
After discussing it with her doctor, she went for more tests to check for any signs of cancer. There were none. In 2001, she had a healthy baby boy.
During the five years between the end of her chemotherapy and her pregnancy, she often worried about whether she would ever have another child, and also whether she would live to see that day.
"I was always praying that I would be healthy and hoping that I would make it to the next checkup," she said.
She also worried about whether being pregnant would put her at risk for a recurrence of her cancer, or for the development of other cancers.
"Everybody worries about that," she said.
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