[Cross-sectional study of drug use in pregnancy]

The aim of the paper is to investigate the impact of drugs utilization during pregnancy in the City of Zagreb. This one-month cross-sectional study was conducted in all four Zagreb maternity hospitals using a questionnaire administered to 893 pregnant women. The women used a mean of 2.6 drugs. The vitamin-mineral complex was the leading medicament used by the women during the study period (62.9%) and during pregnancy period. The leading drugs taken between hospital admission and delivery were metoclopramide (10.1%) and diazepam (6.0%). Utilization of diazepam is high during the entire pregnancy. According to FDA risk classification during pregnancy, most drugs are in B class (88%), and in A class (77%). Percent of FDA C class is 16%. In the FDA classes with fetal risk, D class has 47.5%, and X class, with only one woman using drug from this class has a 0.1% of total utilization. In spite of some limitations of the study, the results pointed to the uneconomical, potentially harmful drug use during pregnancy and puerperium, obviously calling for therapy quality upgrading in this vulnerable period of life.