I am off work today!! A holiday! Today is also the last episode of Star Trek Voyager (Boo!!) and Sam’s birthday. He is 1!! His party is on Saturday.
I took some Pepto-Bismol a couple of days ago. Trust me, I had to take something (grin). Yesterday I looked on www.WebMd.com to see what I could find about taking medicine during pregnancy. All I found was an article that said (for my particular problem) I should take Kaopectate instead. Of course, that made me worry that Pepto-Bismol was some horrid drug. I then found a neat site that lists all drugs by their scientific name (but has brand names in parenthesis) and gives what category they are in for use during pregnancy. Apparently the categories go like this:
Category A meds have been tested on humans and used often in pregnancy. They are okay, as far as anyone knows. Surprisingly, I thought Tylenol would be in this category, but it isn’t. Folic Acid is listed here, not much else. Some vitamins are listed both here and in D, depending on how much you take.
Category B meds have been tested on humans a bit or on animals a lot. They seem fine. Benadryl, Advil, Tylenol and caffeine fall here.
Category C drugs have pretty much not been tested at all but still, nobody knows anything about the drug that is harmful to humans. Plain Robitussin is here.
Category D drugs have some evidence of minor harm, but the pros usually outweigh the cons. Surprisingly, aspirin in regular doses falls here.
Category X drugs (imagine bold red lettering) are those that have harmful side effects and are a risk to the fetus. Birth control pills and Clomid are in this category.
My Pepto-Bismol fell into Category C, which I wasn’t too thrilled about. But realistically, it just means that nobody has studied it. I imagine it is pretty hard to round up several hundred pregnant women and say, “Ladies, here is drug Z. We want you to take it 3 times a day and to tell us how you feel. We have no idea what affect it will have on your babies.”
Of course, I tried to look up Kaopectate, since it had been recommended in that one article, but I couldn’t find it. I have no idea what the scientific name is. And there are a billion drugs listed. The web page is www.perinatology.com/exposures/ druglist.htm.
Nothing to report on TTCing. I feel like I normally do now, except for a slight bit of nausea, which I am sure is due to my upset stomach. Stay away Aunt Flo!!