Premium
Epidemiology of drugs taken by pregnant women: Drugs that may affect the fetus adversely
Author(s) -
Forfar John O.,
Nelson Matilda M.
Publication year - 1973
Publication title -
clinical pharmacology and therapeutics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.941
H-Index - 188
eISSN - 1532-6535
pISSN - 0009-9236
DOI - 10.1002/cpt1973144part2632
Subject(s) - pregnancy , medicine , drug , epidemiology , fetus , drugs in pregnancy , affect (linguistics) , obstetrics , pharmacology , genetics , biology , linguistics , philosophy
The epidemiology of drug consumption during pregnancy has been studied retrospectively in 911 randomly selected mothers. The drugs used, the proportions of pregnant women taking them, the duration and timing of drug administration were ascertained. Excluding iron, drugs were prescribed for 82 % of women during pregnancy and the average number of drugs prescribed for these women was 4. Self‐medicated drugs were taken by 65% of mothers and the average number of drugs taken by these was 1.5. The proportion of mothers taking different categories of drugs ranged from 82% to 1.2%. The mean duration of drug therapy for the various categories of drugs ranged from 125 to 10 days. The duration of treatment with individual drugs was also ascertained. Some drugs tended to be administered early, some late, and some throughout pregnancy. A drug “consumption in pregnancy” factor has been calculated by which the over‐all consumption of a drug can be measured and comparisons made of the consumption of one drug relative to another. Drugs that may carry a risk of teratogenicity if administered early in pregnancy are listed, as are those drugs that, if administered later in pregnancy, may adversely affect fetal functioning or the functioning of the newborn infant at or after birth.