Pregnant women in Canada have a new place to look for evidence-based information on the safety of prescription medications with today’s launch of the Healthy Pregnancy Hub. The new site includes a bilingual library, infographics, videos and podcasts, as well as a search function.
The site is based on research from the Canadian Mother-Child Cohort, which includes data from 500,000 Alberta women who gave birth to 900,000 babies between 2005 and 2023. The cohort examines gestational medication use and the frequency of prematurity, low birth weight, major malformations and multiple births in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Quebec.
Nearly 70 per cent of pregnant women take medications, but there is little clinical trial evidence available about their impact on this population because pregnant women are usually excluded as clinical trial subjects, according to Alberta principal investigator Padma Kaul.
“In the absence of any data from trials, large observational studies are the ones that will provide the best level of evidence,” says Kaul, an epidemiologist in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Alberta. “If women have questions about medications, rather than just stop taking them or being hesitant, we want to provide them with a resource.”
“Women are desperately lacking in information to help them decide whether to take their medication during pregnancy,” says lead researcher Anick Bérard, professor at Université de Montréal. “Being pregnant should not mean they have to choose between their own well-being and that of the child they are carrying.
“This is why I am pleased and proud, today, to present Healthy Pregnancy, an essential resource to equip women and help them make informed, personalized decisions, with their doctor or pharmacist.”
Pregnant women may take medications for a number of reasons including pre-existing conditions such as depression or asthma, pregnancy complications such as high blood pressure or nausea, or illnesses such as colds and infections, says Kaul. The new online hub covers prescription medicines only, but the team plans, in future studies, to gather data directly from pregnant women to examine the impact of over-the-counter medications as well.
The Alberta data that Kaul analyzes include outpatient visits, hospital admissions and pharmacy dispensing records, allowing researchers to track trends over time. For example, one study looked at the impact of COVID-19 infection and medicines on pregnant women. The team found that COVID infection increased the risk of spontaneous abortion, gestational diabetes, premature birth and neonatal intensive care admissions, and that medications such as antibacterials, antidepressants and medicines for obstructive airway disease reduced those risks.
The Alberta research is supported by the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Government of Alberta, the Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation and the Alberta Women’s Health Foundation through the Women and Children’s Health Research Institute. Kaul is co-director of the Canadian VIGOUR Centre, Heart & Stroke Chair in Cardiovascular Research and Canadian Institutes of Health Research Sex and Gender Science Chair in Diabetes.
