meds
The women who took the medicine, metoclopramide, didn’t have a higher rate of premature birth, according to research published online today in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study also found their babies didn’t have a higher risk of malformations or low birth weight compared with the infants of women not taking the drug.
As much as 80 percent of women experience nausea and vomiting in their first trimester of pregnancy and no medicine approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is available currently to treat the condition, study author Gideon Koren said. Another large study is needed in pregnant women to confirm if metoclopramide is effective in relieving morning sickness, he said.
“People were very hesitant to use it in pregnancy because they didn’t know it was safe,” said Koren, director of the Motherisk Program at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and a professor at the University of Toronto in a June 9 telephone interview. “You cannot answer those questions with small numbers. This is the first ground-breaking study of almost 5,000 women. It answers the questions totally.”
Metoclopramide tablets, syrups and injections are sold by several generic drugmakers and under the brand name Reglan by Marietta, Georgia-based Alaven Pharmaceutical and by Baxter International Inc., based in Deerfield, Illinois. The medicine has been approved by the FDA to treat heartburn and digestive problems.
Doug
CDIstaffing.com