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Medications in Pregnancy: Can We Treat the Mother While Protecting the Unborn?

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Optimizing Treatment for Children in the Developing World

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Abstract

With scores of new medications entering the market every year, the labeling for most of these drugs does not contain safety or efficacy data related to exposure during pregnancy. Yet, millions of pregnant women have disorders that require timely treatment, from chronic conditions such as epilepsy to pregnancy-induced conditions such as nausea and vomiting. The lack of knowledge in regard to maternal effectiveness and fetal safety of medications is a significant challenge for the practitioner, and exposes the mother to risk of insufficient therapy for her condition, and places her unborn baby at a potential risk of toxicity. The major task for the scientific community and regulators is to alter the clinical and policy environment which has left women and their unborn babies as therapeutic orphans. This chapter discusses the key elements of these challenges and offer practical solutions to close the knowledge gap.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Motherisk Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Yifat Gadot MD

  2. The Motherisk Program, The Hospital for Sick Children and University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Gideon Koren MD, FRCPC

Authors
  1. Yifat Gadot MD
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  2. Gideon Koren MD, FRCPC
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yifat Gadot MD .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatrics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    Stuart MacLeod

  2. University of Melbourne Medical School, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Suzanne Hill

  3. Departments of Pediatrics and Pharmacology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Gideon Koren

  4. Department of Laboratory Medicine, Division of Clinical Pharmacology, Karolinska University, Hostpital Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

    Anders Rane

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© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Gadot, Y., Koren, G. (2015). Medications in Pregnancy: Can We Treat the Mother While Protecting the Unborn?. In: MacLeod, S., Hill, S., Koren, G., Rane, A. (eds) Optimizing Treatment for Children in the Developing World. Adis, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15750-4_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15750-4_7

  • Publisher Name: Adis, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-15749-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-15750-4

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

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