Affiliation:
1. Department of Epidemiology Boston University School of Public Health Boston Massachusetts USA
2. Slone Epidemiology Center at Boston University School of Medicine Boston Massachusetts USA
3. National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Atlanta Georgia USA
4. Birth Defects Registry, New York State Department of Health; Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health University at Albany Rensselaer New York USA
5. Department of Epidemiology, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health Harvard University Cambridge Massachusetts USA
Abstract
The objective of this analysis was to describe patterns of prescription medication use during pregnancy, including secular trends, with consideration of indication, and distributions of use within demographic subgroups. We conducted a descriptive secondary analysis using data from 9,755 women whose infants served as controls in two large United States case–control studies from 1997–2011 and 2014–2018. After excluding vitamin, herbal, mineral, vaccine, i.v. fluid, and topical products and over‐the‐counter medications, the proportion of women that reported taking at least one prescription medication in the first trimester increased over the study years, from 37% to 50% of women. The corresponding proportions increased with increasing maternal age and years of education, were highest for non‐Hispanic White women (47%) and lowest for Hispanic women (24%). The most common indication for first trimester use of a medication was infection (12–15%). Increases were observed across the years for medications used for indications related to nausea/vomiting, depression/anxiety, infertility, thyroid disease, diabetes, and epilepsy. The largest relative increase in use among women was observed for medications to treat nausea/vomiting, which increased from 3.8% in the earliest years of the study (1997–2001) to 14.8% in 2014–2018, driven in large part by ondansetron use. Prescription medication use in the first trimester of pregnancy is common and increasing. Many medical conditions require treatments among pregnant women, often involving pharmacotherapy, which necessitates consideration of the risk and safety profiles for both mother and fetus.
Subject
Pharmacology (medical),Pharmacology
Cited by
3 articles.
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