More than half of pregnant women experience nausea and vomiting- typically early in their pregnancy. About 10-15% of them need medication to cope, but worry it may harm their baby. But a new Danish study finds no link between the commonly prescribed nausea medication Metoclopramide, or Reglan as it is commonly called, and a risk of birth defects or stillbirth.
"The nice thing about this study is it is a very big population, a large number of patients involved, so even if there was a slight increase this is the kind of study that would pick that up and again, there wasn't and I think that that is very reassuring," said Dr.Jeff Chapa, who did not take part in the study but is an OB/GYN at Cleveland Clinic.
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Researchers at Statens Serum Institute in Copenhagen looked at 1.2 million pregnancies in Denmark from 1997-2011. They compared outcomes for women who used Reglan and those who did not.
Results show no increased risk of spontaneous abortion, preterm birth, low birth weight, fetal growth restriction, cleft palate, neural tube defects, or limb reduction.
Researchers say Reglan is one of the most commonly used prescription medications in pregnancy, but until now, there was limited data on its safety. Chapa says the results are reassuring.
"Many pregnant women, when I ask them about taking a medication, that's the first question: 'Well what is this going to do to the baby?' And I think that there are very few drugs that we actually have with this kind of data on, so for something that's commonly used it's good," said Chapa.
Complete findings for this study are in the Journal of the American Medical Association.