Drug Use Pattern during Pregnancy: A Prospective Study at Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital

Background- Pregnancy represents a special physiological state during which the use of drug is of growing concern due to risk of teratogenicity with drugs. Most studies recently have reported increase in drug use in pregnancy.Objective- To study and to evaluate the pattern of drug use in women attending the antenatal clinic of Obstetrics and Gynecology department at a tertiary care hospitalResults- Out of 734 women, 94% were 20-35 years of age. Common complaints were abdominal pain (13.8%), vomiting (12.4%), fever (7.5%) and others. Average number of drugs prescribed was 3.01 and 86% of women were prescribed 2 or more drugs. Iron preparations (78%) and calcium carbonate (77%), were the most frequently prescribed drugs followed by folic acid (46%), isoxsuprine (24.4%) and others. Antibiotics were prescribed to 11.2%. The drugs belonging to essential drugs list were 59% and 22% of the drugs were prescribed by generic name. Out of 2208 drugs prescribed, 77.5% were FDA drug risk category A, 12.6%, Category B, 9.1% Category C and 0.7% to category D.Conclusion- Iron, Calcium and Folic acid were the most frequently prescribed drugs. Number of drugs from Essential drugs list and prescribing by generic names were less