Epidemiological data on drug use during pregnancy in Thuringia, East Germany, 1993

An international collaborative WHO-study on drug use in pregnancy of 1987 involving 300 puerperae from Thuringia, East Germany (the former GDR), has partly shown great differences in drug use habits between the countries which had participated on the study. In 1993--after the radical change on the socioeconomic situation in East Germany by the reunification of Germany leading also to changes in health service--an update of the East German data was carried out by repeating the investigation in the same Thuringian region as in 1987. Whereas drug therapy of chronic diseases in pregnancy and drug administration under delivery were widely similar in both investigations, we found a marked increase in drug use in case of illness in the course of pregnancy before admission to hospital for delivery but also in the treatment of nursing women. The differences can be partly put down to socioeconomic development. Because of the continuously enlarging drug market on the one hand and a small data basis on drug risks and side-effects for unborn life on the other hand, a large screening on drug exposition in pregnancy including recording of newborns' data ought to be performed.