RESEARCH: Some antacids during pregnancy could increase the risk of your baby developing asthma.

Heartburn and indigestion are common during pregnancy but doctor’s are concerned about the risks to a unborn baby.

A recent study, published in the journal Pediatrics, examined the impact of two types of antacids: proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) such as Prilosec and Prevacid, and histamine-2 receptor antagonists (H2RAs) such as Pepcid and Zantac.

Researchers pooled data from 8 other studies involving more than 1.6 million women in Europe and Israel. They concluded that women taking PPIs during pregnancy had a 34 percent increased risk of having children who developed asthma than women who didn’t take these drugs.

Women who took H2RAs during pregnancy had an even higher risk: they were 57 percent more likely than women who didn’t take the drugs to have a child who developed asthma, the researchers concluded.

NOTE: The study only relied on information from records like government health registries or prescription databases. These studies included women in Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Israel and the UK.

HOWEVER  it could be, for example, that indigestion and heartburn in pregnancy – not the drugs themselves – increase the risk of childhood asthma, an accompanying editorial pointed out.

The authors said more clinical studies are needed to confirm the findings and it’s too early to recommend restricting the use of antacids among pregnant women. However, they suggested parents and healthcare providers use caution when deciding whether to take acid-suppressing drugs during pregnancy.

Please remember to take caution with any medication during pregnancy. “All women should use caution when taking acid-suppressing drugs during pregnancy,” said senior study author Dr. Huahao Shen of Zhejiang University in China.

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