Morning Sickness Drug Zorfan Safe for Fetus

First Posted: Mar 01, 2013 05:45 AM EST
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Very few women are able to pass through their pregnancy period without a whiff of morning sickness, while most mums-to-be spend a bulk of their time throwing up in the bathroom. Most of them turn to medication to get rid of their horrible morning sickness, but they fear that the drug they consume may harm their growing fetus.

But a latest Danish study eases such fears, claiming that pregnant women are not harming their baby by consuming the anti-nausea drug. According to the study, the use of the popular anti-nausea drug ondansetron (brand name Zofran) does not cause any birth defects or risk to the growing fetus.

The study worked on data of 600,000 pregnancies in Denmark from Jan. 1, 2004 to March 31, 2011. Researchers examined the nationwide health registries in order to compare the rates of preterm delivery, stillbirth, miscarriage, major birth defects or low weight babies among women who used Zofran to treat their morning sickness versus those who did not take the drug.

The study was conducted by lead author Dr. Bjorn Pasternak of the State Serum Institute in Copenhagen.

Those who used Zofran did not report any major birth-related problems. Of those women who took the morning sickness drug in the first trimester, over 1 percent had a miscarriage when compared to 4 percent women who did not take the medication.

Looking at both groups, 3 percent of moms gave birth to babies with major birth defects. The birth defects included heart defect, and malformations of spine or brain.

"Although these results cannot definitively rule out the possibility of adverse effects in association with ondansetron, the results do provide reassurance regarding the use of this agent for nausea and vomiting in pregnancy," the researchers write in the conclusion of the paper.

The study was published in the journal New England Journal of Medicine

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