Antibiotics and Pregnancy

Penicillin and some other antibacterial medication treatments are not considered as dangerous to be used by pregnant women. However, expectedly the antibiotic list of the medications is quite long to fear pregnant women and the most dangerous for pregnancy antibiotics are sulfonamides and nitrofurantoins which cause serious birth defects and can require intensive care to be sought.

As stated in the background information of the article, treatments of infections is very important for a mother and baby. Consequently the most commonly used drugs/antibiotics list during pregnancy include antibiotic approved during the pregnancy.  Though a long antibiotics list is prescribed pregnant ladies, it has not been examined on large scales to completely proven to be safe nor risky.

A large number, 13,155 pregnant women who have had pregnancy affected by one of more than 30 defects was closely analysed by physicians from Atlanta. The researchers have focused on and compared the antibacterial medication, antibiotic pregnancy, used before and/or during the pregnancy period among these women as well as 4941 women living in same geographical area who were selected randomly and did not have defects.

Increased antibiotics use from the antibiotic list by pregnant women, generally peak during the third month. In total 3,863 women who have had birth defects (29.4 %) and 1,467 control mothers (29.7 %) used antibiotics/ antibacterial around the three months before pregnancy and the end of pregnancy.

The author supporting the safety of penicillin and a few other antibiotics using during the pregnancy out of the long antibiotic list has been proved by the following; "Reassuringly, penicillins, erythromycins and cephalosporins, although used commonly by pregnant women, were not associated with many birth defects,”. Erythromicins were linked to 2 defects, Penicillin, Cephalosporins and Quinolones were associated with one defect.

Sulfonamides and Nitrofurantoins out of the antibiotic list of antibiotics pregnancy have been linked by several birth defects and for a detailed research needs to be carried out on these two medication to prove and reject prescription of these for pregnant women as antibiotics pregnancy.

The author states that it is difficult to determine what has caused a birth defect. Additionally author noted that a defect could be caused by many factors. The study carried out does not prove the safety of drugs for pregnant women however presents the commonly faced risks that are linked with antibiotics pregnancy and other antibacterial antibiotics from antibiotic list.