Prescribing in Pregnancy

The use of drugs in women who are pregnant or breast feeding is a question of fine balance. Harm may befall a baby because a drug has been used, but mother and baby could suffer if a disease goes untreated. Information about the safe and effective use of drugs in pregnancy has not kept pace with the advances in other areas of therapeutics. Systematic research involving drugs in pregnancy is fraught with ethical, legal, emotional and practical difficulties and in many cases our knowledge is based on anecdote or small studies. The purpose of this book is to bring together what is known about prescribing in pregnancy and to put that information in a clinical context. The first three editions were well received and this has encouraged us to produce a fourth edition. All chapters have been extensively revised or rewritten, with several new authors bringing their clinical experience of this challenging subject.