QUESTION A 36-year-old pregnant patient has symptoms of peptic disease. Treatment with diet and lifestyle modifications and also antacids has given her little relief. If she were not pregnant, I would prescribe a proton pump inhibitor (PPI) for her. She is now 4 weeks pregnant, and I need to determine whether PPIs are safe during pregnancy. ANSWER Data currently available suggest that omepraz...

The prevalence of congenital malformations and cognitive disorders in children whose mothers took antiepileptic drugs in pregnancy is increased, compared with the background rate. Not all such cases are due to teratogenic effects of the mother's treatment. Certain problems, including neonatal withdrawal symptoms, some malformations, characteristics facial features and a typical developmental an...

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) disease activity may improve during pregnancy but postpartum flares are common. Patients taking disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs should be counselled about effective contraception. Knowledge about drug safety in pregnancy is limited but the Therapeutic Goods Administration categories and online resources are a guide to the data currently available. Begin prepregna...

Studies made on aqueous root extract of Selayak Hitam, a plant alleged to possess abortifacient activity in pregnant mothers established that the extract is teratogenic and did in fact cause abortion in mice. It was also observed that the aqueous root extract is relatively toxic as judged by the number of deaths occuring following administration of the extract. The mechanism by which abortion i...

In Australia in the 1940s, Norman McAlister Gregg observed a connection between pregnant women who contracted the rubella virus, or German measles, and cataract formation in their children's eyes. Gregg published his findings in the 1941 article "Congenital Cataract following German Measles in the Mother" in Transactions of the Ophthalmological Society of Australia. In the article, Gregg analyz...

In his comprehensive review, Dr. Rajkumar provides a summary of the current status of thalidomide (Thalomid) therapy in cancer. As discussed in the article, it was the teratogenic effects, particularly phocomelia, that prompted researchers to examine thalidomide’s antitumor activity in the 1960s. Although, the results of early phase I trials of thalidomide as an anticancer agent were disappoint...

Methotrexate is a drug that is used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, Reiter’s syndrome, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, ectopic pregnancy and other conditions. Since methotrexate is well known for its teratogenic effects in humans, the present study is conducted to observe its effect on chick embryos. A single injection of 0.012 mg of methotrexate was injected into the yolk sac...

Among the various exogenous agents inducing developmental anomalies in higher mammals, administration of chemicals to pregnant animals may be a suitable means for the detection of the mechanism of teratogenesis. Sinclair ('50) recognized an abnormality of the nervous system of embryos after treatment of pregnant mice of an albino stock for several days from 7-8th day of gestation, with ethyl-ur...