Is There Any Role for Pregnancy and Breastfeeding in Explaining the Increased Incidence of Acute Pancreatitis?

We read the interesting article by Iannuzzi et al1 on the increasing global incidence of acute pancreatitis (AP) over time. They report that AP is one of the leading causes of hospitalization for gastrointestinal (GI) disease in United States and in Western countries. Furthermore the authors speculate that the rise in incidence of AP may be related to increases in the diagnosis of metabolic syndrome and obesity, which in turn is a cause of AP. We want to highlight the role of pregnancy and breastfeeding not only on gallstone development but also on the incidence of gallstones-related postpartum AP.