We've changed our name: OTIS' non-profit service is now officially "MotherToBaby!"
The Baby Blog
For Moms-To-Be This Mother’s Day: Why Guiding Your Child’s Future Has Already Begun
For Moms-To-Be This Mother’s Day: Why Guiding Your Child’s Future Has Already Begun
By Kenneth Lyons Jones, MD, OTIS/MotherToBaby President.
We, the Organization of Teratology Information Specialists (OTIS), are extremely pleased to introduce a new name for our free counseling service called MotherToBaby. MotherToBaby was chosen because it so perfectly depicts the commitment we have made to provide personalized, evidence-based information to mothers-to-be, to women contemplating pregnancy, and to health care professionals about medications and other exposures during pregnancy and while breastfeeding.
The awareness that a drug can be transported from mother to baby is a fairly new concept. Until recently it was thought that the developing baby was protected from the
external environment and that all birth defects had a genetic cause. That all changed in the 1960s when Widukind Lenz in West Germany and William McBride in Australia recognized that a drug used for the treatment of nausea and vomiting, as well as anxiety, caused serious defects in the development of a baby’s arms and legs when taken early in pregnancy. Over the years , the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction. No longer is it believed that the unborn baby is protected from environmental influences. Instead, concern has been raised that many drugs taken commonly by pregnant women can cause problems for a developing baby.
external environment and that all birth defects had a genetic cause. That all changed in the 1960s when Widukind Lenz in West Germany and William McBride in Australia recognized that a drug used for the treatment of nausea and vomiting, as well as anxiety, caused serious defects in the development of a baby’s arms and legs when taken early in pregnancy. Over the years , the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction. No longer is it believed that the unborn baby is protected from environmental influences. Instead, concern has been raised that many drugs taken commonly by pregnant women can cause problems for a developing baby.Despite that concern, instances occur in which a woman inadvertently takes a medication prior to the time she realizes she is pregnant and many women are required to take a drug because of a chronic condition such as a seizure disorder or depression. That is why, in addition to our counseling services, we have a major commitment to gain new information about drugs for which little or no information is known. When a drug is newly approved by the FDA and marketed there is inadequate information about the effects of that drug on human pregnancy outcome. After all, it would be unethical to give a newly marketed drug to a pregnant woman to find out if it is safe for the developing baby.
At the present time drugs are evaluated only after a woman discovers she is pregnant. In cases in which pregnant women call MotherToBaby about a drug for which adequate information is unavailable, follow-up of her pregnancy by our counselors and documentation of pregnancy outcome can provide valuable information that can help the next pregnant woman who asks us about the same medication.
We at MotherToBaby are consulted about hundreds of different drugs each year, but the one that we are most frequently asked about is alcohol. Like most drugs, there remains a huge amount of important information about its effect on the developing baby for which we lack adequate information. However, we do know that prenatal exposure to alcohol is the number one cause of intellectual disability. We know that the Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) occurs in children of all ethnic groups, all nationalities, and all socioeconomic groups. In fact, women with advanced education report they drink alcohol more than women with less education. Unlike many other drugs, we know that alcohol can have an effect following exposure in any trimester of pregnancy, and we know that FASD occurs in one out of 100 live born babies making it almost as common as Autism Spectrum Disorder.
It is important to recognize that knowledge about the effects of drugs, chemicals, infections, and environmental agents on pregnancy outcome provides the opportunity to prevent birth defects and other adverse pregnancy outcomes. We at MotherToBaby believe our primary role is to provide that education to pregnant women and particularly to women who are contemplating pregnancy.
If you have questions about drugs and other exposures, call MotherToBaby toll-FREE at 866-626-6847 or visit MotherToBaby.org to browse a library of fact sheets. MotherToBaby and OTIS are suggested resources by many agencies including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Kenneth Lyons Jones, MD, is a professor of pediatrics at UC San Diego and current president of OTIS/MotherToBaby. He was the first researcher to identify Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) in 1973.
