Leaflets A - Z

This information is not intended to replace the individual care and advice of your health care provider. The decision to start, stop, continue or change a medicine before or during pregnancy should be made together with your health care provider. When deciding whether or not to use a medicine in pregnancy you need to weigh up how the medicine might improve your and/or your unborn baby’s health against any possible problems that the drug may cause.

As many as 1 in every 5 pregnancies ends in a miscarriage, and 1 in 40 babies are born with a birth defect. These are referred to as the background population risks. They describe the chance of these events happening for any pregnancy before taking factors such as the mother’s health during pregnancy, her lifestyle, medicines she takes and her genetic make up into account. Sometimes there is no obvious explanation as to why a woman has a baby with a birth defect or another poor pregnancy outcome.