title: Drug supplementation in pregnancy.
abstract: Since antiquity, there have been references in medicine to the role of nutrition in pregnancy outcome. Reviewing articles on nutrition and drug supplementation in pregnancy, one is struck by the variety of remedies that have been tried and the variety of effects that have been attributed to them. The number of herbal remedies that have been touted is astounding, and the entire science of Geophagia evolved in the hope identifying of those population-specific customs that may have had a positive effect on birth outcome as an adaptive mechanism. Most recently, there has been renewed interest in the role of nutritional and drug supplementation in pregnancy, specifically in the areas of pregnancy-induced hypertension and teratogenesis. In this article, I briefly review the role of drug supplementation in pregnancy, ranging from established needs such as iron to prevent iron-deficiency anemia to the controversies of low-dose aspirin supplementation for the prevention of preeclampsia and preconceptional folic acid supplementation for the prevention of neural tube defects.
authors.affiliation: Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts.
authors.forename: J T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Repke
mesh_terms: D001241:Aspirin / Q000008:administration & dosage; D002413:Cations, Divalent / Q000008:administration & dosage; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007501:Iron / Q000008:administration & dosage; D011247:Pregnancy; D011295:Prenatal Care / Q000379:methods*; D014815:Vitamins / Q000008:administration & dosage
chemical_list: D002413:Cations, Divalent; D014815:Vitamins; D007501:Iron; D001241:Aspirin