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I just love this picture I found on a blog. I remember when my sons did this to my stomach. Isn't it the craziest thing? I never got a cool picture like this!
I thought I would post this somewhat "lighter" story this afternoon after all the controversy the last three days.
The Federal Drug Administration is looking at replacing prescription drug warning codes for pregnancy. If this is implemented I will be thrilled. It seems like every doctor has a different idea of what pregnant women should avoid. And don't even get me started on what you can and cannot have when you're nursing. I remember bottled water was "not recommended" for nursing mothers. It has something to do with how many people have been tested. If no one has looked at the impact of bottled water and breastfeeding, it is "not recommended."
And then there are all those rules about what you can't eat when you're pregnant. I know my neighbor told me I couldn't have raw deli meat. I had to heat it up to kill bacteria. My doctor never said anything about this to me. But, of course, we all want what's best for our babies. So, I ordered every sandwich heated in the deli for nine months. It was very annoying and people always looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe I was.
"The Federal government's proposal is to add clearly marked labels that describe what research shows. It's meant to help doctors and patients know which medications are safe for women to use during pregnancy or when they breastfeed. Right now, prescription drugs have a code in the fine print.
For instance, category "A" means it's deemed safe, but category "X" means it's known to harm human fetuses. Other category's in between have varying levels of evidence one way or the other. The new system would have sections with research about fetal risk."
I hope this happens. I know I had to go on certain medications when I was pregnant that weren't necessarily recommended, but that's all I knew. What could they do to my baby? Is there a real danger or has this medication not been tested thoroughly?
-NewsAnchorMom Jen
4 comments:
As I continue to nurse, I use LacMed to check. Often times the pharmacist and doctor are unwilling to look meds up or misinformed of their impacts to lactation. More than once a doctor and pharmacist have told me that a medicine will not impact my lactation or baby, but I have found evidence to the contrary. Mostly, I avoid all medicines beyond my thyroid medication.
http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/htmlgen?LACT
Great resource Maria, I'm adding that to my bookmarks and list of resources to refer fellow breastfeeders to!
My resource has been Dr. Thomas Hale's Medication and Mother's Milk (gee, I hope that code and link work!) While it can be a tad technical, it does provide more specific classifications of drug safety for both pregnancy and breastfeeding.
Hate to burst your bubble.... but isn't that picture doctored? I think I heard that anyway...
I'm another fan of Medications and Mother's Milk. Unfortunately, most physicians rely on the PDR - which like you said in the post, discourages most things because they haven't been tested.
This is just one more obstacle many nursing mothers face, and another reason they have to be their own advocates so often in healthcare decisions...
It's doctored? That's a bummer. It's so neat. Figures!
And I will add your links for nursing moms on my site too! Thanks!
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