(long) if you take prescription meds daily, did you...

[Anonymous]

...continue to take them before getting pregnant and during pregnancy? with all my heart, I want a second child. after giving birth to my son, I was put on medication for a previously undiagnosed condition. the docs said that I had probably had it for years. I was glad that the diagnosis came after having my son, because the decision to have him would have been made more difficult with me having to consider the medication issue.

my docs said that I am on a lose dosage and that probably everything would be fine. PROBABLY. I know there is always some measure of risk in conceiving. I think we all worry about Downs and other potential complications. but, I'm terrified that if I take this risk and conceive a baby on this drug, I'm rolling the dice with a little baby's life.

if you stayed on your medication, did you lower the dosage? what precautions did you take, if any? how did everything go?

if you went off, were you concerned that whatever ailment the medication treated would harm you or your baby? was everything OK?

I know I have LOTS of researching and soul-searching to do. I've talked to DH a little bit about this, and I know this is a decision we need to reach together.

but, I just would like to hear from other moms who went though this. thanks, everyone.

[Anonymous]

I consulted my dr. who prescribed the medication about this. Following his advice I stayed on my medication while trying to conceive. As soon as I knew I was pregnant, I stopped it. He felt that before implantation, there would be little risk to the baby if I were on it, but I needed to stop as soon as I got my positive test results, so it would all be out of my system by the time of implantation. My condition is more a quality-of-life thing than a life-threatening thing. We decided that if I experienced recurrence while pregnant, I would take a different type of medication that has better studies available showing it is not harmful, vs. the one I was originally on, which had not yet been studied as well. Once my son was born, I started the meds again but did not breastfeed.

I don't know what your condition is, but in my case, it was a choice of balancing how sucky I might feel off the medication with the relatively low risk of birth defects. My first trimester really was awful, but I knew from my previous pregnancy that I might start to feel a lot better at 12 weeks. I was lucky in that after my first trimester I did feel pretty good, but if I hadn't I would have just taken the alternative medication rather than being miserable.

Hope that helps - but I would strongly advise you discuss the issue with your prescribing doctor and your OB before deciding.

[Anonymous]

There are different classifications for drugs when it comes to pregnancy. Many (most?) have not been formally tested on pregnant women because it costs a pharma company a lot to do a trial and the results could be very dangerous.

Having said that, I will tell you that I am on asthma and allergy medicines and, at the prompting and encouragement of my doctor, I took them every day when I was pregnant. Though there have not been formal clinical trials performed, the drugs had been around long enough for other pregnant women (and I'm guessing a lot of them considering the conditions!) had taken the drugs with no negative side effects for the babies.

If a drug has negative side effects in animal testing, it is rated as a Category D and clearly states that it should not be given to pregnant or breastfeeding mothers. Your doctor (or pharmacist) would tell you if your drug is in that category if you ask them. Most drugs are Category C, which is the one where no trials have been performed, but no animals had negative side effects.

Sorry for the long, preachy reply, but I wanted to tell you as much as I know (which is a fair bit since I work as a librarian for a pharmaceutical company).

[Anonymous]

PP here again - briefly this time! I forgot to mention that I am now on Atenolol, which is a cardiology med. I asked my cardiologist about the medicine in case we decided to have another child, and he told me I would need to go off of the meds if I wanted to get pregnant again.