Pregnant women overestimate the risks of taking over the counter and prescribed medication – according to brand-new research from the University of East Anglia (UEA).
The findings prove to that women opt for not to medicate common pregnancy symptoms such as nausea, heartburn and aches and pains.
Most worryingly, mums-to-be are opting for not to take medication for UTIs – which can easily induce substantial complications and harm the foetus if left untreated.
Lead researcher Dr Michael Twigg, from UEA’s School of Pharmacy, said: “We wanted to discover out exactly what women believe regarding the risks and rewards of taking medication while pregnant.
“We wanted to already know exactly how these beliefs and fears relate to real medication taking – whether they protect against women taking medication which is really safe.”
The worldwide research group sought pregnant women or brand-new mothers via popular websites such as Bounty and the Pregnancy Forum.
A total of 11twenty volunteers carried out an online survey in which they were asked regarding which common conditions they had went through throughout pregnancy – such as nausea, heartburn, constipation, colds, urinary tract infections, neck and pelvic pains, headaches and sleeping problems.
The women were asked regarding the extent to which they believed medicines to manage these conditions were harmful or beneficial. They were additionally asked regarding whether they deliberately stayed away from any type of medicines throughout pregnancy, and if so which ones.
Finally, the women were asked to price a range medicines, meals and various other substances in terms of exactly how harmful they believed they were for the foetus on a scale of 0-10.
Dr Twigg said: “We located that merely over 3 quarters of the women used some form of medication to manage a minimum of one common condition went through throughout pregnancy.
“Relatively couple of took medication for nausea, constipation or sleeping problems. Yet these symptoms can easily be alleviated by adjustments to diet regimen and lifestyle.
“We additionally located that a large variety of women believed that taking paracetamol throughout pregnancy was risky and would certainly stay clear of it. It is Yet perfectly safe.
“Among the Many worrying points we located was that numerous women that went through a UTI did not take medication for it. If left untreated, UTIs can easily induce substantial complications and harm the foetus.
“A total of 72 per cent of the women said they deliberately stayed away from making use of certain medicines throughout pregnancy – particularly paracetamol, ibuprofen, cough and cold remedies, antihistamines and nasal decongestants – for fear of harming their unborn child.
“Overall, women that did not take medication perceived the risk to be better compared to those that chose to take medication.
“exactly what this all of shows us is that women requirement much more short article regarding the safety of medications throughout pregnancy to urge them to manage conditions effectively. Discovering women’s comes to is additionally important to promote adherence to prescribed medications throughout pregnancy.
“Interestingly regarding 50 per cent of women said they used the internet to source medical information. numerous additionally said they seek insight from pharmacists so it would certainly be practical for pharmacists to have actually much better professional training in this area,” he added.
‘Women’s beliefs regarding medication usage throughout their pregnancy: a UK perspective’ is published in the worldwide Diary of Clinical Pharmacy.