Associations between oral clefts and drugs taken during pregnancy

Associations between drug consumption during pregnancy and the birth of children with oral clefts were studied in material from the Finnish Register of Congenital Malformations, consisting of 599 children with clefts and their matched controls. Information concerning maternal drug consumption was partly prospective. During the first trimester, analgesic, chemotherapeutic and antineurotic drugs had all been significantly more frequently used by the mothers of children with clefts, than by the control mothers. The consumption of drugs was in general more frequent among mothers of children with cleft lip, with or without cleft palate, than among those of children with cleft palate alone.