Nonprescription Drugs in Pregnancy

Many women of child-bearing age buy over-the-counter medications for a variety of disorders, such as seasonal allergies, colds, headaches, and others. Whether planning their pregnancy or already pregnant, they want to know if these nonprescription drugs are safe for unborn babies. All nonprescription drugs contain one or more active ingredients that treat the patient's symptoms and are actually drugs themselves. Twenty to thirty years ago, many of these active ingredients were FDA-approved prescription drugs. At the time, those prescription drugs were assigned a Pregnancy Risk Category: A, B, C, D, or X. Although some of these drugs switched from prescription to nonprescription status, meaning they could be sold over-the-counter, their Pregnancy Risk Categories still applied. This unique book contains the FDA's Pregnancy Risk Categories for the active ingredients in five hundred nonprescription drugs, and includes a procedure for locating risk categories for any drug that isn't in the book.