₦airaland Forum

PREGNANT women who take common painkillers could unwittingly be putting the fertility of their offspring at risk, a study suggests.

Tests on rats found that when a mother was given paracetamol or the aspirin-like drug indomethacin, her daughters had fewer eggs than those not exposed to the medicines.

On top of fewer eggs, they also had smaller ovaries – and gave birth to smaller litters of babies.

But the results weren’t confined to just the female species. Males had fewer cells that give rise to sperm later in life. However, their fertility recovered to normal levels by the time they matured into adults.

Despite the fact that foetal development is slower in humans than in rats, scientists say the findings are significant given the similarity of the two species’ reproductive systems.

Paracetamol is widely used to treat headaches, while prescription-only indomethacin reduces inflammation and the pain of fever and arthritis.

According to the NHS, paracetamol is “usually safe to take” during pregnancy, but they say ideally you should avoid medicines when you’re pregnant and advise before taking any medicine, you should get advice from a GP or midwife.

Professor Richard Sharpe, from the University of Edinburgh’s MRC Centre for Reproductive Health, who co-led the study published in the journal Scientific Reports, said: “It’s important to remember that this study was conducted in rats, not humans. However, there are many similarities between the two reproductive systems.

“We now need to understand how these drugs affect a baby’s reproductive development in the womb so that we can further understand their full effect.”

Rats were given the drugs over several days and experienced effects after one to four days.

As well as affecting a mother’s immediate offspring, the medicines also appeared to have a worrying impact on grandchildren.

Granddaughters of the animals given the painkillers while pregnant also had smaller ovaries and altered reproductive function.

The scientists believe, some painkillers may affect the development of “germ cells” that mature into eggs and sperm within the womb.

The reason could be that the drugs act on hormones called prostaglandins known to regulate ovulation, the menstrual cycle, and the induction of labour.

Co-author Professor Richard Anderson, also from the University of Edinburgh, said: “These studies involved the use of painkillers over a relatively long period. We now need to explore whether a shorter dose would have a similar effect, and how this information can be usefully translated to human use.”

Professor Adam Balen, chairman of the British Fertility Society, added: “This is an interesting study of long-term use of paracetamol in pregnant rats and so, whilst we must be cautious extrapolating to humans, it is sensible for pregnant women to minimise use of paracetamol and other painkillers and seek medical advice if they experience problems with significant pain in pregnancy.”

The work was funded by the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust.

http://pelmedic.com/forums/topic/painkiller-use-in-pregnancy-may-put-your-offspring-fertility-at-risk/

So I have been watching out for these guys – PelMedic, since last year that I found their Facebook page and liked them. Initially, they said they were going to launch on the 1st of October, but when that date came, it was nothing on their site, just the normal introduction page. I thought they were going to launch the next day, since October 1st is ……. you know, but they didn’t. So from time to time, I’d check on their site expecting to see something, until now so that I thought I should let you guys know.

The reason I always check on them is because they promised free telemedicine. Unlike other telemedical service that I have tried, the best of which offers their first question for free, subsequent question are paid, these guys promised everything will be free. How they intend to gain from that, their problem, since profit is the major aim of business. Money is everything. I hope they stay around for long.
I registered and I quite like the dashboard, no app yet on Playstore but I assume that is on the way.
Here is their link: www.pelmedic.com

What do you guys think?