Taking pregabalin (Lyrica) during pregnancy may be associated with a higher risk of major birth defects, researchers found.
In a prospective, nonrandomized study, women who took pregabalin while pregnant were more likely to have babies with major birth defects (6.0%) compared with women who did not take the drug (2.1%; odds ratio 3.0, P=0.03), Ursula Winterfeld, PhD, of Lausanne University Hospital in Switzerland, and colleagues reported in the journal Neurology.
Women who’d taken the drug also had a lower live birth rate compared with the control group (71.9% versus 85.2%, P=0.0001).
The study authors concluded that women taking pregabalin during pregnancy perhaps may need more advanced fetal monitoring.
