n”>(Reuters Health) – Pregnant women are frequently steering clear of drugs that may ease troubles enjoy nausea and urinary tract infections although the treatments might be safe, a U.K. study suggests.
Researchers surveyed 1,1twenty women concerning common troubles they went through throughout pregnancy and whether they believed medications to handle these complications were harmful or beneficial.
Overall, concerning 76 percent of the women reported taking medication for at the very least among eight common conditions throughout pregnancy including nausea, heartburn, constipation, colds, urinary tract infections, neck or pelvic pain, headaches and sleeping problems.
But for some problems, numerous women didn’t take medications, even once drugs may not be harmful or forgoing treatment may be dangerous, researchers report in the Worldwide Diary of Clinical Pharmacy.
“numerous women prevent medications as they fear harming the child,” said lead study author Michael Twigg, a pharmacy researcher at the University of East Anglia.
“We don’t want women to prevent medication and suffer unnecessarily from conditions that can easily be treated relatively easily,” Twigg added by email.
To already know exactly how women consider medication usage throughout pregnancy, Twigg and colleagues analyzed data from an online survey of women in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Roughly 40 percent of the participants were pregnant once they completed the survey, while the remainder had offered birth within the previous year.
About 17 percent of the women reported having a chronic medical condition, the majority of frequently asthma, allergies, depression, anxiety or thyroid issues.
For common pregnancy complications enjoy nausea, sleep troubles and constipation, women frequently avoided medication although there are certain treatments offered that are not considered harmful, the study found.
Even though concerning 79 percent of women went through nausea throughout pregnancy, for example, just about 10 percent of them took medication.
Non-prescription anti-nausea drugs supply an example of exactly how women could needlessly suffer and potentially permit small troubles to escalate in to bigger ones by skipping treatment, said Angela Lupattelli, a study coauthor and pharmacy researcher at the University of Oslo in Norway.
“Nausea and vomiting can easily be fairly devastating for women, and it is fairly necessary that women do not come to be dehydrated or harmful as a result of pregnancy sickness,” Lupattelli added by email.
With sleep, 67 percent of women reported troubles Yet just concerning 1 percent of them took drugs although there are some nonprescription choices that are not considered harmful throughout pregnancy.
Roughly 55 percent of women said they endured from constipation, Yet just 19 percent of them turned to medication for relief. In this case, too, certain medications are believed to be safe throughout pregnancy.
Most worrisome, just concerning 65 percent of women that produced urinary tract infections throughout pregnancy took medications, a concern due to the fact that these can easily escalate in to kidney infections that can easily be life threatening for the two mothers and their babies.
“Some untreated conditions such as urinary tract infections specified in the article, Yet additionally chronic conditions including depression, could create significant complications, endangering the Healthiness of the mother and her unborn child,” said Marleen van Gelder, a pharmacy researcher at Radboud University Medical Focus in the Netherlands that wasn’t involved in the study.
One problem, of course, is that drug trials exclude pregnant women for ethical reasons, limiting exactly how a lot we already know concerning whether numerous treatments are really safe throughout pregnancy, van Gelder added by email.
Safety can easily additionally vary by trimester, and the incentives and harms of treatment could depend on the severity of women’s symptoms and others aspects of their pregnancy or medical history, ven Gelder noted.
One limit of an online study is that the subset of women that opt for to participate could not reflect the broader population, the authors note. The study group additionally lacked participants’ medical records or data on their drug usage throughout pregnancy to assess exactly how the severity of certain conditions may have actually influenced the women’s opinions concerning medication.
Women must ask a Healthiness professional once they have actually questions concerning drugs throughout pregnancy, Twigg advised.
“The consequences of not discussing right usage of medicines throughout pregnancy . . . can easily be serious,” Twigg said.
SOURCE: bit.ly/217ziD9 Worldwide Diary of Clinical Pharmacy, online could 30, 2016.
