Hello, I'm your old friend – the little man at home! In the last article on safe medication during pregnancy, I mainly talked to you about what to do if you don't know what to do if you take medicine if you are pregnant. Today, I will talk to you about another part of medication safety, that is, to know if you can take certain drugs if you are pregnant.
Do you remember the five elements of medication during pregnancy? Even the medication time, drug type, medication route, drug dosage, duration, and medication principles during pregnancy also revolve around these five major elements.
The first principle is that no medication can be used during pregnancy, especially in the first trimester, because this is the main period of the baby's organ development, but it does not mean that there is no contraindication to medication after this period. Medication in the third trimester may also lead to milder morphological abnormalities, functional abnormalities, and growth disorders.
The second principle is to minimize the types of drugs to be taken, to choose the drugs with the highest safety, and to use the lowest dose and the shortest duration of treatment while guaranteeing the effect. The drugs used should have obvious advantages outweighing the disadvantages. The most important of these two principles is the four words, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. So before using each drug, doctors and expectant mothers should discuss the trade-offs together, that is, whether the advantages of medication outweigh the disadvantages, that is, what will happen if the medication is not used, and what are the risks of medication. What happens without medication depends on the disease itself. It's hard to tell you everything here.
So what do doctors talk about the risks of medication? This brings us to the grading of medications during pregnancy that you may have heard of. The FDA of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration divides drugs into ABCD and X5 categories. The ingredients and safety of various types of Chinese drugs are the safest in descending order, Class A is the safest, Class B is relatively safe, and Class C is used after weighing the advantages and disadvantages.
The first category is known to be harmful to the baby, but if the expectant mother can use class X when it must be used, it is obviously more harmful than beneficial, and it is a banned drug. In 2015 this classification was removed because it was too simplistic, and the new system required an overview of the drug's risks and listing the supporting evidence. For expectant mothers, the best way to judge the risk of medication is, of course, to have a detailed discussion with a doctor. On the other hand, you can also help yourself make preliminary judgments by querying the FDA rating of drugs. As for how to query the grading of drugs, you can query through the Medication Assistant APP.
Okay, above we've talked about the principles of medication. Next, let's talk about the common misconceptions of medication during pregnancy. The following are all things that often happen in life, so we should pay more attention. Take the common cold, for example, which is a self-limiting disease that can relieve symptoms by taking medicine, but it does not get better faster. Simply put, even if you don't take medicine, you will be fine. Other common self-limiting diseases include viral diarrhea and viral pharyngitis. Regarding which diseases are self-limiting or not recommended for self-examination, or that sentence, the situation that cannot be judged needs to see a doctor. However, if the headache or sore throat caused by a cold is too severe, acetaminophen can be taken. From a weighing pros and cons, if the pain does not affect the sleep and life of the expectant mother. Then taking medicine will do more harm than good. There are also some diseases that require medication, and it is not recommended to carry it hard. Taking the flu as an example, everyone thinks that the flu is also a cold to carry. But because of the high complication rate of influenza during pregnancy, the benefits of treatment outweigh the risks, so it is recommended to treat as early as possible, which is an example of the advantages of taking drugs outweighing the disadvantages.
In addition to the flu, there are also some cases that require medication, often involving the taking of antibiotics. Many expectant mothers also smell discolored, and the anti-inflammatory drugs that everyone often says are what our doctors say about antibiotics. Some people take antibiotics during pregnancy, even if a bacterial infection occurs, while some people are accustomed to the pattern of a slight pain in the throat and an anti-inflammatory drug. Both of these practices are incorrect, and antibiotics can be used during pregnancy if needed, such as pneumonia, urinary tract infections, etc. The following antibiotics are definitively non-formulated, including cephalosporins, penicillin, azithromycin, clindamycin, amoxicillin, potassium clavulanate, metronidazole, and erythromycin. However, it should be noted that etoxithromycin does not belong to this category, and it should not be confused with erythromycin.
But antibiotics are not a panacea, and the use of antibiotics during pregnancy should be based on the guidance of a doctor to choose a safe drug. In the previous medication elements, we mentioned that the route of medication is also an important factor affecting the risk of medication. Therefore, the risk of medication cannot be evaluated solely by the name of the drug. In the case of fungal vaginitis during pregnancy, for example, we avoid oral antifungal medications, but will recommend topical vaginal treatment, so that the dose of systemic absorption is greatly reduced.
At the same time, for some pregnant asthma compared with oral hormones, the use of inhaled hormones is relatively safe, and the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. For eczema or impotence during pregnancy, it is relatively safe to use topical, inefficient hormonal ointments on the skin for short periods of time. For hemorrhoid pain, topical use of didocaine gel for analgesia is also relatively safe.
Saying that these are not for expectant mothers to change their medication methods without authorization, and the choice of medication methods should also conform to the principle that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Choose the safest route when efficacy is guaranteed. Due to the wide variety of diseases during pregnancy, there are thousands of drugs. It is difficult for me to list them here, but I hope that through this course, you will have a preliminary understanding of the principles of medication during pregnancy, and when encountering specific situations, the most important thing is to fully communicate with the doctor and follow the doctor's instructions.
Well, today's article is shared here, I hope that we can have the opportunity to become a better self because of the arrival of our children, be better parents, learn to think, learn to judge, learn to analyze, and accompany our children to grow up with him.
This article is original by the little man at home, welcome to pay attention, take you along with long knowledge!