In the 1990s, misoprostol (synthetic prostaglandin
E1 analogue) was found to be an effective abortive agent when taken
orally and became widely used in Latin America as a means to terminate unwanted
pregnancies. A variety of congenital anomalies have been observed among the
children of women who ingested misoprostol, but failed to terminate their
pregnancy. We report here eight years of experience in Panama with the
detection and follow-up of the malformations seen in infants associated with
the use of misoprostol prostaglandin
during the first trimester of pregnancy. During the period between April 1995
and March 2003, we identified 63 infants at the Panama’s Children’s Hospital
who were exposed to misoprostol while in the womb and who were born with malformations. These infants were evaluated by a team
of neonatologists, geneticists, cardiologists, ophthalmologists, and
radiologists.
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