Use of Psychoactive Medication During Pregnancy and Possible Effects on the Fetus and Newborn

Abstract

To the Editor. We would like to commend the AAP's Committee on Drugs for a very thorough review, in your April 2000 issue, of the use of psychoactive medications during pregnancy. We were also pleased to see an informative review of the difficulties in using the FDA “Use-in-Pregnancy Ratings” as a guide to prescribing and counseling families with these exposures.However, a few points require clarification. OTIS (Organization of Teratology Information Services) is a 40-member organization of Teratology Information Services (TIS) in the United States and Canada. TIS consists of 3 components: service, education, and research. TIS provides information concerning exposures before and during pregnancy to over 50 000 health care providers and consumers annually. Individual services generally provide didactic presentations in their area of service. Many TIS have become involved in research projects looking at outcomes of pregnancies exposed to numerous agents such as angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, maternal varicella infection, asthma medications, and Arava (a new drug used for rheumatoid arthritis). Most TIS are funded with state-specific monies and are accessible via toll-free phone lines. For information on the TIS in a specific area, please contact the OTIS national headquarters at 1-888-285-3410 or the web site located at www.ucsd.edu/otis.Additionally, OTIS does not coordinate subscriptions to TERIS, although the web site address (http://weber.u.washington.edu/terisweb/teris/index.html) listed is accurate. It should be mentioned that a similar database is also available, REPROTOX, which can be subscribed to at the following web site: http://www.reprotox.org. We would also like to stress that TIS are comprehensive and multidisciplinary resources for consultation regarding prenatal exposures, available to both health care providers and consumers.