It is common knowledge that it is best not to take any drugs and medication during pregnancy and women should also avoid alcohol and smoking.
If you are thinking about Sudafed and pregnancy most probably you have a cold and you are looking for some kind of medication. But is Sudafed safe during pregnancy?
According to official information, the drug may be safe during pregnancy, but at the moment there isn’t enough information available to give an accurate answer.
The information regarding the side effects is quite limited.
The FDA developed a category system to categorize the drugs according to their effects on pregnant women, and according to that Sudafed is in category C.
This category is associated with the drugs that haven’t been tested on pregnant women but they don’t seem to affect pregnancy in case of animals.
In the same time the same category is given to medication not tested on pregnant humans or animals.
In case you are thinking about taking Sudafed during pregnancy you should know that there is some evidence suggesting that if the medication is taken during the early stages of pregnancy it could cause gastroschisis.
This refers to an opening of the abdominal wall that allows the intestines to protrude.
Another possible side effect of the medication may be small intestinal artesia which refers to a blockage or a missing section of the small intestine. Still the risks of such complications are quite small and they could be caused by other factors as well.
In this case it is also important to mention that sometimes animals respond to medication in different ways than humans. This means that you could take Sudafed while being pregnant if your health care provider thinks that the benefits overweigh the risks. Naturally in the end the decision depends on you.
