TY - JOUR T1 - Taking drugs during pregnancy. How safe are the unsafe? JF - Canadian Family Physician JO - Can Fam Physician SP - 951 LP - 953 VL - 47 IS - 5 AU - G Koren AU - L Schuler Y1 - 2001/05/01 UR - http://www.cfp.ca/content/47/5/951.abstract N2 - QUESTION: I prescribed misoprostol to one of my patients with a peptic ulcer. When she found out she was pregnant while on the drug, both she and, admittedly, I were very scared to learn that the drug is teratogenic in that it causes Möbius syndrome. How great is the risk? ANSWER: Very small. Although women who use misoprostol during the first trimester have a 30-fold higher risk of having babies with Möbius syndrome, the malformation is so rare that, even if you see 1000 women who took misoprostol during embryogenesis, you might not see a single child with the syndrome. It is crucial to explain the size of the risk; otherwise women tend to believe the risk is huge even when, in fact, it is hardly measurable. ER -