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Earlier this week, a study came to a surprising and heartbreaking halt. Babies dies in viagra trial tragedy. A Dutch drug trial looking into the effects of sildenafil — the generic version of Viagra — on a rare but serious fetal-development condition was cut short after 11 infants, born to mothers who had taken the drug while pregnant, died, The Guardian reported yesterday (July 24).

But why were pregnant women given the drug to begin with?

using a men’s erectile-dysfunction drug for pregnancy problems may sound unusual, the odd treatment — and investigations into how it can help this particular fetal-development condition — has actually been around for years.

What is viagra

Viagra is in the category of medications known as vasodilators, meaning it opens up blood vessels, increasing blood flow. The effect can give men a boost when they need more blood flow to a particular area. And under the set of conditions that the Dutch research team examined, boosting a pregnant woman's blood flow to the placenta could have really helped the fetus.

Understanding the research

The trial was focused on pregnant women with fetuses that had a condition called early-onset fetal growth restriction. Simply put, the condition basically means there isn’t enough blood flow to the placenta, said Dr. Ahmet Baschat, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Fetal Therapy at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

This can happen either because the mother’s blood vessels aren't providing enough blood to the placenta, or because the baby’s blood vessels can't generate healthy blood flow. Either way, the result is the same: The amount of oxygen and nutrients flowing to the fetus is very low.

The condition is rare — Baschat said he estimates that between 0.5 and 0.8 percent of pregnancies are affected — but serious. "[The placenta] loses ability to work way before due date," Baschat told Live Science, and mothers often give birth early, between 24 and 32 weeks. Only about 40 to 50 percent of those babies survive. (Indeed, among the women in the trial who were in the control group — meaning they didn't get the drug — nine of the babies died.)




https://medfort.com.ng/babies-dies-in-viagra-trial-tragedy/

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