Medicines Usage in Pregnancy
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Date
2010-07-13
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Abstract
Medication usage in pregnancy requires a lot of caution because every medicine can pose a risk and not all risks are known, Medicines are thought to account for 1-3% of maternal mortality.
This research seeks to determine the extent, safety, and effectiveness of medication use in pregnancy , to reduce the incidents of maternal mortality attributed to medication use, so that healthcare professional and pregnant women could make informed decisions.
Six hundred (600) pregnant women attending antenatal care and three hundred (300) pregnant women attending outpatient department (OPD) at Dormaa Presbyterian hospital were randomly sampled and interviewed. Their responses were collated and analyzed.
The result indicates that both manufactured orthodox medicines and alternate herbal medicines were widely used among pregnant women of all ages, pregnant women who used herbal medicine alone or in combination were characterized by very young and very old age, little or no education, increased parity, chronic diseases and receipt of social assistance. A total of 43.5% of pregnant women were found to have had exposure to medications in FDA safety category C, D, and X, the most common of these being misoprostol, egometrine, and diclofenac. The average number of drugs prescribed per person was found to be 4.5, Over 90% of expectant mothers take four to five drugs at some stage of pregnancy, and a significant number of pregnant women were taking medications at the time their pregnancies were detected.
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A Thesis submitted to the Department of Clinical and Social Pharmacy,Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirement for the Degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE
Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Health Science,