MedWire News: A substantial proportion of women fill prescriptions during pregnancy that are harmful to the developing fetus, say scientists who call for medication inventories to be conducted before pregnancy.

Anick Bernard, from the University of Montreal in Quebec, Canada, and colleagues studied 109,344 women who were pregnant during a 5-year period and were insured for prescription medications.

The results showed that 56.0 percent of women filled at least one prescription for any medication, while 6.3 percent filled at least one prescription for a drug with recognized embryotoxic, fetotoxic, or teratogenic potential.

In all, 47.0 percent of pregnancies in which the women filled at least one prescription for a harmful drug resulted in termination of pregnancy, while 6 percent resulted in miscarriage. This compared with 26.2 and 4.7 percent for other pregnancies. The rate of major congenital malformation was 7.1 and 8.2 percent, respectively.

The team concludes: “To minimize the exposure of pregnancies to potentially harmful medications, those who provide care to women during pregnancy should be aware of a possible background of prescription medications that may need to be assessed and, possibly, altered.

“Clinicians caring for women during pregnancy should conduct a medication inventory prior to a planned pregnancy, or as soon as an unplanned pregnancy is recognized.”

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