Posted on June 3, 2008 by Gerald Pugliese
The FDA wants to make drug-labeling guidelines more pregnancy-friendly.
The Checkup blog is on it:
Once you've addressed those issues, many other important questions remain -- including this one: Are your prescription drugs safe for you to take while you're pregnant?
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been working for more than a decade to make that question easier for women and their doctors to answer. Late last week the agency took another step in that process, proposing new drug-labeling guidelines that aim to more clearly and thoroughly spell out a drug's potential risks and benefits to a pregnant or nursing mother and her baby…
…Interested parties have 90 days to comment on the proposal. Assuming no major obstacles, FDA approval of the measure is expected within a year. Once that occurs, makers of new drugs will have to update their labels immediately. Makers of older drugs will have more time to phase in label changes.
But new system or not, making decisions about taking meds while you're pregnant or nursing isn't likely to become clear-cut anytime soon. Weighing whether the possible risks of a drug outweigh its likely benefits won't always be easy: In many cases, such as when a woman takes medications for asthma, depression, or diabetes, it may well be in a woman's best interest to stay on those meds while pregnant, even if it's uncertain how those drugs may affect her baby. But at least women and their doctors will have the best-available information right in front of them.
Makes sense to me. After all, a pregnant woman is taking drugs for two.
