Prohibited Medication During Pregnancy

Most women take some kind of drug, substance or medication during pregnancy, often without realizing the potential for harm. Drugs or medication which taken by the mother may cross the placenta and reach the developing fetus. The possible effects may include prenatal death (stillbirth), developmental delay, intellectual disability and birth defects.

Therefore, US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) creates a system for rating drugs in terms of their safety during pregnancy. This system rates both over-the-counter (OTC) drugs you can buy in a drug or discount store, and drugs your health care provider prescribes. But most medicines have not been studied in pregnant women to see if they cause damage to the growing fetus.

The FDA system ranks drugs as:

· Category A – drugs that have been tested for safety during pregnancy and have been found to be safe.

· Category B - drugs that have been used a lot during pregnancy and do not appear to cause major birth defects or other problems.

· Category C - drugs that are more likely to cause problems for the mother or fetus. Also includes drugs for which safety studies have not been finished. The majority of these drugs do not have safety studies in progress. These drugs often come with a warning that they should be used only if the benefits of taking them outweigh the risks. This is something a woman would need to carefully discuss with her doctor.

· Category D - drugs that have clear health risks for the fetus

· Category X - drugs that have been shown to cause birth defects and should never be taken during pregnancy.

The list of drugs which is prohibited during pregnancy and the efect to the baby are:

Medication	Possible Effects
Androgens (male hormones)	Ambiguous genital development (depends on dose given and time when given)
Anticoagulants (warfarin)	Bone and hand abnormalities, intrauterine-growth retardation, central-nervous-system abnormalities, eye abnormalities
Antithyroid drugs (propylthiouracil, iodide, methimazole)	Hypothyroidism, fetal goiter
Chemotherapeutic drugs (methotrexate, aminopterin)	Increased risk of miscarriage
Isotretinoin (Accutane)	Increased miscarriage rate, nervous-system defects, facial defects, cleft palate
Lithium	Congenital heart disease
Phenytoin (Dilantin)	Growth retardation, mental retardation, microcephaly
Streptomycin	Hearing loss, cranial-nerve damage
Tetracycline	Hypoplasia of tooth enamel, discoloration of permanent teeth
Thalidomide	Severe limb defects
Trimethadione	Cleft lip, cleft palate, growth retardation, miscarriage
Valproic acid	Neural-tube defects

There are still a lot of drugs, which haven’t tested yet for pregnant women. So it is good for you or your wife for seeking advice from your doctor before you take some medication.