Drug use in pregnancy among parous Scandinavian women

The aim of the present study was to investigate the prevalence of drug use in 1945 parous pregnant Scandinavian women, to determine the most common drug categories, and to describe changes in drug use throughout pregnancy. The women were interviewed about drug use by a specially trained midwife at five different occasions during pregnancy: at gestational week 17, 25, 33, 37, and on admission for delivery at three Scandinavian study sites (Trondheim, Bergen and Uppsala). When excluding vitamins and iron supplementation, 1086 (56%) women reported at least one episode of drug use during pregnancy, with an average of 2.6 episodes among the women reporting drug use. Four percent of the women accounted for 18% of the episodes of drug use. Systemic anti-infectives (15%), respiratory drugs (12%), gastrointestinal drugs (11%) and analgesics (11%) were the most widely used drugs among all the pregnant women. The number of women using drugs increased throughout pregnancy.