[Personal experience with monitoring drug prescriptions in pregnancy]

The authors submit the results of an epidemiological perspective investigation concerned with drug prescription in 372 pregnant women during the period 1983-1988 in two municipal health communities of a regional town with an industrial and agricultural agglomeration. They record for orientation also some other factors which may have an impact on mother and foetus, i.e. smoking, alcohol intake, black coffee. In drugs with a possible negative effect on mother and foetus the prescribed dose was expressed in % DDD and the time interval during pregnancy. The results revealed a significant drop of drug prescription in all groups of drugs, in particular Ferronat, antihistaminic drugs and Diazepam. Perinatal complications, functional or somatic disorders in neonates were manifested in 31% of the total number of neonates. In the small group investigated by the authors neither the effect of the number of drugs nor a relationship between different drugs and certain functional or somatic disorders of the child during delivery were apparent.