[Drug prescription for pregnant women: a pharmacoepidemiological study]

Prescription drug use by pregnant women should be viewed as a public health issue, since there are numerous gaps in knowledge on the consequences for both the mother and the fetus. Pharmacoepidemiological studies can help minimize the inherent risks in drug treatment by establishing a profile of drug consumption during pregnancy, providing an evaluation of this service, and identifying intervention measures. The purpose of this study was to establish a prescription profile for pregnant women treated under the National Health System (SUS) in Piracicaba, São Paulo State, Brazil, using prescription indicators recommended by the World Health Organization and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration classification of medicines according to risk to the fetus. According to the current study, during prenatal consultations 44.7% of the women received drug prescriptions, and the most widely prescribed group of drugs were those acting on the hematopoietic system (34.9%). Of this total, 26.0% of the drugs were included in fetal risk category C, 1.5% in category D, and 1.5% in category E. These data point to the medicalization of pregnancy and the need for intervention measures aimed at rational prescription drug use during the prenatal period.