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CHICAGO – Medications to treat inflammatory bowel disease were well tolerated in pregnancy and weren’t linked to worse maternal-fetal outcomes, according to a study of more than 1,000 pregnant women.
Despite many physicians’ concerns about the safety of azathioprine and biologic agents during pregnancy, maternal exposure to those IBD medications was not associated with an increase in adverse outcomes such as preterm birth or congenital anomalies, explained Dr. Uma Mahadevan of the University of California, San Francisco Center for Colitis and Crohn’s Disease.
"If you continue [the medications] and control your disease and have a healthy pregnancy, that’s the key to having a healthy baby," Dr. Mahadevan observed.
In a video interview at the annual Digestive Disease Week, Dr. Mahadevan discussed the study’s findings, whether combination therapy has an impact on the risk of preterm birth, and what effect IBD medication exposure may have had on children’s achievement of developmental milestones up to age 4 years.