Macrolides a risk in early pregnancy

Dr Linda Calabresi

writer

Dr Linda Calabresi

GP; Medical Editor, Healthed

Claim CPD for this activity

Educational Activities (EA)

0 hours

These are activities that expand general practice knowledge, skills and attitudes, related to your scope of practice.

Reviewing Performance (RP)

0 hours

These are activities that require reflection on feedback about your work.

Measuring Outcomes (MO)

0 hours

These are activities that use your work data to ensure quality results.

EA
0 minutes

These are activities that expand general practice knowledge, skills and attitudes, related to your scope of practice.

RP
0 minutes

These are activities that require reflection on feedback about your work.

MO
0 minutes

These are activities that use your work data to ensure quality results.

Dr Linda Calabresi

Avoid prescribing macrolides to pregnant women, say UK researchers after they found the antibiotics were associated with an increased risk of significant birth defects, particularly cardiac defects.

The study is certainly going to cause some concern as to date macrolides such as erythromycin, clarithromycin and azithromycin are commonly prescribed here in Australia especially to patients who are allergic to penicillin. And given their category A pregnancy safety rating in this country, many GPs would not have thought twice about writing a script for any of these antibiotics for women who were, or potentially were, pregnant.

PASSWORD RESET

Forgot your password or password not working? Please enter your email address. You will receive an email with the link to set a new password.

Fan H, Gilbert R, O’Callaghan F, Li L. Associations between macrolide antibiotics prescribing during pregnancy and adverse child outcomes in the UK: population based cohort study. BMJ. 2020; 368: m331. DOI: 10.1136/bmj.m331

Icon 2

NEXT LIVE Webcast

:
Days
:
Hours
:
Minutes
Seconds
A/Prof Daryl Cheng

A/Prof Daryl Cheng

RSV Prevention in Infants and Pregnant Women

Prof Jason Ong

Prof Jason Ong

STIs – Common and Tricky Cases

Dr Terri Foran

Dr Terri Foran

Role of Testosterone During Menopause - Evidence vs Hype

Dr Fiona Chan

Dr Fiona Chan

Vision and Driving Fitness: Key Insights for Health Practitioners

Join us for the next free webcast for GPs and healthcare professionals

High quality lectures delivered by leading independent experts

Share this

Share this

Dr Linda Calabresi

writer

Dr Linda Calabresi

GP; Medical Editor, Healthed

Test your knowledge

Recent articles

Latest GP poll

Has a clinic you work at ever received an unfair negative online review?

Yes

0%

No

0%

Recent podcasts

Listen to expert interviews.
Click to open in a new tab

Find your area of interest

Once you confirm you’ve read this article you can complete a Patient Case Review to earn 0.5 hours CPD in the Reviewing Performance (RP) category.

Select ‘Confirm & learn‘ when you have read this article in its entirety and you will be taken to begin your Patient Case Review.

Menopause and MHT

Multiple sclerosis vs antibody disease

Using SGLT2 to reduce cardiovascular death in T2D

Peripheral arterial disease