:00:14. > :00:19.during pregnancy, but could they be risking the health of their unborn
:00:19. > :00:25.child? She could be mentally, physically disabled and she could
:00:25. > :00:29.have no quality of life. Even doctors don't know if most
:00:29. > :00:33.prescription drugs will be safe during pregnancy.
:00:33. > :00:37.If David's condition was preventible and it wasn't prevented, then that's
:00:37. > :00:42.really, really awful. thalidomide scandal was meant to
:00:42. > :00:45.have improved safety monitoring, but could another drug have damaged far
:00:45. > :00:49.more children? So you really do think it's much bigger than
:00:49. > :00:53.thalidomide? A lot, lot bigger. That's why there needs to be a
:00:53. > :00:59.public inquiry because we don't know. The evidence that other common
:00:59. > :01:03.drugs are linked to heart defects in babies. How does no-one know this is
:01:03. > :01:13.going on? How much do we really know about the safety of pills in
:01:13. > :01:31.
:01:31. > :01:35.She and her partner are moving to a bigger flat in Croydon before the
:01:35. > :01:40.arrival of their first baby. They are having a girl and plan to
:01:40. > :01:45.call her Emily. But Jo, a nursery teacher, is facing
:01:45. > :01:49.a stark reality. She has epilepsy. So to control her seizures, she
:01:49. > :01:54.needs to take powerful medicine. I wasn't controlled, I wouldn't be
:01:54. > :01:58.able to do the job that I do. If my tablets didn't work, it could ruin
:01:58. > :02:02.my life. But the pills that protect her
:02:03. > :02:06.health could have harmed the baby she's carrying.
:02:06. > :02:12.Jo's pregnancy wasn't planned. She was four weeks pregnant and still
:02:12. > :02:17.taking the drug before she realised. Was there a discussion at that stage
:02:17. > :02:23.that you should maybe try a different one? No, because after the
:02:23. > :02:28.first four to eight weeks, the tablets would have had the effect on
:02:28. > :02:34.the foetus anyway. That's quite a difficult thought to deal with.
:02:34. > :02:38.Especially not knowing that, you know, you're already pregnant.
:02:38. > :02:42.So far, all Jo's scans and tests have come back clear. But not all
:02:42. > :02:48.the disabilities limped to the drug she's taken can be detected in
:02:48. > :02:52.advance. We'll just have to wait and see and
:02:52. > :02:56.get her checked out once she's born and then keep getting regular
:02:56. > :03:00.checks. It's not just women with epilepsy
:03:00. > :03:04.who find themselves in this situation.
:03:04. > :03:09.Most women take medicine in pregnancy, often before they realise
:03:09. > :03:15.they are expecting. And that's the key time when the
:03:15. > :03:18.baby's heart, brain and other organs are forming. You might expect that
:03:18. > :03:22.all medicines have been thoroughly tested to show that they are safe
:03:22. > :03:26.during pregnancy, but it's not considered ethical to test drugs on
:03:26. > :03:36.pregnant women, so doctors simply don't know for sure whether most of
:03:36. > :03:37.
:03:37. > :03:44.the drugs they prescribe to pregnant women could harm their baby.
:03:44. > :03:49.For families, the problems that can lead to can be life-changing.
:03:49. > :03:54.good girl... Phoebe Vaggers has a lot to deal
:03:54. > :04:04.with for a four-year-old. She has poor eye sight, struggles with
:04:04. > :04:05.
:04:05. > :04:10.speech and learning, her hearing is poor. Very beautiful.Her mum,
:04:10. > :04:16.Gemma, has epilepsy, and like Jo Burrows, took a drug called epilim
:04:16. > :04:20.throughout her pregnancy. If I don't take that drug, I can say
:04:20. > :04:25.to you now 100% I will have a seizure. I could be walking across
:04:25. > :04:27.the road, have a seizure and be knocked over. Because I don't get
:04:28. > :04:33.any warning, I don't know when it's going top what, so it's very
:04:33. > :04:37.dangerous. The benefits to Gemma of taking her
:04:37. > :04:42.medicine are clear. But before getting pregnant, she and her
:04:42. > :04:46.husband wanted to know whether it could pose a risk to the baby.
:04:46. > :04:50.We thought we'd do it the proper way, get proper medical advice
:04:50. > :04:54.because obviously you were on medication, so we went to see a
:04:54. > :04:58.urologist. They say the epilepsy specialist
:04:58. > :05:03.told them there was a small chance the baby could have a cleft palate,
:05:04. > :05:08.spina bifida wn Down's Syndrome, risks that are well documented. On
:05:08. > :05:11.balance, risks they felt prepared to take. Pf
:05:11. > :05:15.We came away from that appointment feeling very happy didn't we and
:05:15. > :05:20.confident. The last thing he said was, you are young, healthy, we see
:05:20. > :05:25.no reason why you shouldn't go on to have another happy, healthy baby and
:05:25. > :05:28.it left her feeling great. Yes. Phoebe was born, she didn't have any
:05:28. > :05:34.of the problems they'd been warned about. It was months before they
:05:34. > :05:39.realised something was wrong. She wouldn't sit up. Then she
:05:39. > :05:44.wouldn't crawl. It was these major milestones that she just wasn't
:05:45. > :05:48.hitting. No-one made the link with epilim. So Gemma was still taking
:05:48. > :05:52.the drug when they tried for another baby.
:05:52. > :05:55.It was only when Gemma was five months pregnant with her second
:05:56. > :06:01.child, Charlie, that she discovered her daughter's problems had been
:06:01. > :06:07.caused by the pills she was taking. Today, they are going to see the
:06:07. > :06:16.specialist who broke that bad news to them three years ago. I'm going
:06:16. > :06:18.to hold your hands, OK. Looking at her hands again. Her finger is a bit
:06:18. > :06:24.tapering, something we sometimes see. The other side not so much
:06:24. > :06:29.which is good. Dr Peter Turnpenny suspected straightaway that Phoebe's
:06:29. > :06:32.problems had been caused by epilim. It was a situation where they bring
:06:32. > :06:35.the child into the room and, you know, before they've sat in the
:06:35. > :06:39.chair you have recognised the problems, or the features, that are
:06:39. > :06:43.evident in the child, social appearance.
:06:43. > :06:47.He diagnosed Phoebe with foetal valporate syndrome, a range of
:06:47. > :06:52.physical and dwromental problems caused by exposure to epilim. Gemma
:06:52. > :06:56.and James had never heard of the syndrome.
:06:56. > :07:00.And there was more bad news. There was a high chance the baby she
:07:00. > :07:08.was carrying could have the condition too.
:07:08. > :07:16.It was quite difficult. Obviously, I was pregnant with Charlie, so it was
:07:16. > :07:21.really hard. Charlie was later diagnosed with the same syndrome.
:07:21. > :07:26.Like Phoebe, it's had a major impact on his life.
:07:26. > :07:31.He's developed mentally delayed by about 18 months. He's not talking,
:07:31. > :07:41.not putting sentences together. His understanding is there, but there's
:07:41. > :07:44.
:07:44. > :07:52.Charlie as normal a life as possible, but they don't yet know
:07:52. > :07:57.what the future holds for them. very difficult to know. I have
:07:57. > :08:00.certainly seen some young adults who have been exposed to this drug who
:08:00. > :08:06.struggle with independent living. this is a life-long condition for
:08:06. > :08:10.some people? I think for some, the more severe end of the spectrum,
:08:10. > :08:14.that's undoubtedly the case. Do you want to stand next to mum and we'll
:08:14. > :08:21.try and measure your head? Excellent. Good fella. Dr Turnpenny
:08:21. > :08:24.says up to 20,000 children could have been damaged by epilim. The
:08:24. > :08:27.Vaggers can't turn the clock back, but they are sure they would have
:08:27. > :08:32.done things differently if they'd been able to make an informed
:08:32. > :08:36.choice. I can't be on no drug, which is
:08:36. > :08:40.obviously the ideal scenario, but we've tried everything else we could
:08:40. > :08:46.have before having a child on epilim.
:08:46. > :08:51.New evidence about epilim eats impact on the mental development of
:08:51. > :08:55.children is still e-Americaning, even though the drug's been provided
:08:55. > :08:59.for 40ure years in the UK. research we have done seems to show
:08:59. > :09:05.that more children have developmental delay and even autism
:09:05. > :09:10.would be in the spectrum. Figures of up to 30% of children being affected
:09:10. > :09:14.are being quoted. A substantial risk? A huge risk.Are you surprised
:09:15. > :09:19.it's taken so long for this risk to become apparent? Very surprised. 40
:09:19. > :09:21.years this drug has been prescribed to thousands, the forgot tens or
:09:21. > :09:26.hundreds of thousands of women worldwide.
:09:26. > :09:34.How can it have taken so long to discover that a widely used drug has
:09:34. > :09:37.harmed up to one in three babies exposed to it during pregnancy?
:09:38. > :09:41.Janet Williams says 25 years ago mothers like her didn't know of any
:09:41. > :09:46.risks. She lives near Blackpool with her
:09:46. > :09:52.two grown-up sons, both of whom have foetal valporate syndrome.
:09:52. > :10:01.22-year-old Philip is more seriously affected. Philip in particular, it's
:10:01. > :10:04.constant reminders of things. Like in the bathroom here, we have this
:10:04. > :10:09.about not forgetting to wash and brush his teeth. If that's not
:10:09. > :10:15.there, when he comes in in the morning, he just totally forgets.
:10:15. > :10:20.What sort of challenges do you face? Memory for one. I haven't got a good
:10:20. > :10:27.one. You have to tell me things three times before it actually sinks
:10:27. > :10:31.in. And even then, I try not to forget what you just said.
:10:31. > :10:35.From her bedroom, Janet now runs a campaign group with Emma, another
:10:35. > :10:38.mum whose children have been damaged by the drug.
:10:38. > :10:42.They think epilim's manufacturer should take some responsibility
:10:42. > :10:48.because they say the company only began to give women adequate
:10:48. > :10:51.warnings in the mid 1990s. To put the onus on the prescriber I
:10:51. > :10:57.think is all wrong really, it's the drug company that should be bearing
:10:57. > :11:01.the brunt of this, especially for the older kids, definitely.
:11:01. > :11:05.Some families tried to sue the drug company, Sanofi Aventis, but the
:11:05. > :11:10.case collapsed three years ago. The company says it warned doctors
:11:10. > :11:13.from the beginning. Now, Janet and Emma want a full public inquiry.
:11:13. > :11:18.This drug's been out on the market for 40 years this year. It's come to
:11:18. > :11:24.a point now where the public inquiry is a necessity to find out what's
:11:24. > :11:34.happened, why it's happened, why the system's failed. Sanofi Aventis told
:11:34. > :11:50.
:11:50. > :11:54.company, prescribers or the medicines regulator, a medical
:11:54. > :11:59.tragedy on this scale was never supposed to happen again.
:11:59. > :12:05.In the 1960s, thousands of babies were born with serious deformities
:12:05. > :12:10.because of a drug called thalidomide their mothers took during pregnancy.
:12:10. > :12:14.Nick Dobrik is one of the few hundred remaining adult survivors in
:12:15. > :12:18.the UK. He and the thalidomide Trust are shocked by the largely hidden
:12:18. > :12:26.damage caused by epilim. Now, they too, are campaigning for a public
:12:26. > :12:29.inquiry. It was thought at the time a tragedy
:12:29. > :12:33.like thalidomide would never happen again. How wrong we were. I think
:12:33. > :12:38.the epilim story is a much greater disaster than even the thalidomide
:12:38. > :12:44.story. To think this tragedy on a scale may be as much as 20 times
:12:44. > :12:48.larger than thalidomide has happened and gone unnoticed, it's incredible.
:12:48. > :12:52.So you really do think it's much bigger than thalidomide? A lot, lot
:12:52. > :12:56.bigger, and that's why there needs to be a public inquiry because we
:12:56. > :13:01.don't know the facts. Around a thousand babies in the UK
:13:01. > :13:05.were damaged by thalidomide. Up to 20,000 may have been harmed by
:13:05. > :13:13.epilim. Why hasn't this been picked up much
:13:13. > :13:18.sooner by the medicines regulator? Let's be clear, it's quite
:13:18. > :13:21.inappropriate to compare epilim, sodium valporate with thalidomide?
:13:21. > :13:25.Why? We should treat with caution the estimates you have quoted
:13:25. > :13:28.because of the fact that use has declined with the warnings we have
:13:28. > :13:34.given and the fact that people have taken on board the fact that epilim
:13:34. > :13:37.should not be used unless there is no safe effective alternative in
:13:37. > :13:41.pregnancy. When we seen your research saying there's a up with in
:13:41. > :13:45.three chance almost of a baby being borned with developmental problems,
:13:45. > :13:49.it shouldn't take 40 years for that evidence to emerge, should it?
:13:49. > :13:54.Evidence emerges over time, and the link between a drug exposure in
:13:54. > :13:58.pregnancy and a developing child takes time to gather.
:13:58. > :14:02.After the thalidomide tragedy, the Government set up an early warning
:14:02. > :14:06.system that's meant to quickly flag up side effects when a medicine is
:14:07. > :14:13.in general use. So if a doctor even suspects that a drug has caused
:14:13. > :14:18.harm, they are meant to fill in a yellow card report like this and
:14:18. > :14:22.send it to the medicines regulate who pools them together in a central
:14:23. > :14:26.database. The system is voluntary and in practice, doctors rarely fill
:14:26. > :14:30.out yellow cards. When a baby is born with a disability, they don't
:14:30. > :14:37.always make a link to medicine the mum took in early pregnancy.
:14:37. > :14:40.The yellow card system, which really relies on a systemattic way on
:14:40. > :14:45.individual clinicians reporting problems, that's a really limited
:14:45. > :14:50.way to be able to understand these problems. Some tragic event happens
:14:50. > :14:55.with a baby's born with a horrible life ending cardiovascular anomaly
:14:55. > :15:00.and you just think, how awful that is, and you don't think, I wonder if
:15:00. > :15:04.it was due to X nine months ago. physical defects were painfully
:15:04. > :15:08.obvious from birth with thalidomide. But Phoebe and Charlie's problems
:15:08. > :15:11.weren't diagnosed for a full year. Neither case was reported to the
:15:11. > :15:17.regulator. Did you or any of the doctors
:15:17. > :15:21.involved fill out a yellow card? It was only literally in recent
:15:21. > :15:26.weeks I've even heard of the yellow card.
:15:26. > :15:30.We found another 14 cases where babies were born with serious health
:15:30. > :15:36.problems after their mums took prescription medicines during
:15:36. > :15:41.pregnancy. The MHRA says the yellow card system is the best in the world
:15:41. > :15:44.in picking up suspected safety problems, but not these cases. All
:15:44. > :15:50.their families say they weren't reported to the regulator.
:15:50. > :15:54.This isn't just about the safety of epilepsy medication. Most of the
:15:54. > :15:58.drugs used during pregnancy haven't shown to be unsafe for the unborn
:15:58. > :16:07.child. And now there's growing concern about one of the most widely
:16:07. > :16:10.prescribed types of drugs. Antidepressants.
:16:10. > :16:15.What's that? David Wilson's spent the first eight
:16:15. > :16:19.months of his life in and out of hospital.
:16:19. > :16:23.When his mum Anna had her 20 week scan, doctors realised he had a
:16:23. > :16:32.serious heart problem. They said he'd need surgery as soon
:16:32. > :16:36.as he was born. There is just so much when he was
:16:36. > :16:40.born, about whether he would survive a day and the first operation and we
:16:40. > :16:44.just didn't know. 11 days old when he had his first surgery, and he
:16:44. > :16:48.didn't cope very well after that, became very swollen because there
:16:48. > :16:53.was too much blood going into his lungs and his whole body was
:16:53. > :16:58.swollen. He had a second operation at 16 days old.
:16:58. > :17:01.David with us hooked up to machines for five weeks. He'll need more open
:17:01. > :17:07.heart surgery before he starts school.
:17:07. > :17:10.Tock fors say he may not live beyond He's got a lot of suffering ahead of
:17:10. > :17:14.him. We know that. That's a certainty. And that's pretty awful.
:17:14. > :17:21.Four years before she got pregnant, Anna went to see her GP because she
:17:21. > :17:26.was suffering from anxiety. He prescribed the antidepressant,
:17:26. > :17:31.Cipramil. I had quite a tough time at work, a lot of stress. My mum had
:17:31. > :17:38.been quite ill as well and it just all had taken its toll. It worked a
:17:38. > :17:45.treat, just calmed everything right down and I got back to being myself.
:17:45. > :17:50.Citalopram is one of a group of commonly used antidepressants used
:17:50. > :17:55.by up to one in six women taking pills. When Anna first thought about
:17:55. > :18:00.getting pregnant, she asked her dobling for if it was OK to stay on
:18:00. > :18:03.the drug. He said it was fine. In the event I had a miscarriage with
:18:03. > :18:08.that baby and we went to see the doctor after the miscarriage and
:18:08. > :18:15.there was no connection made with citalopram.
:18:15. > :18:19.She went on to have a healthy son, Liam. So she had no worries about
:18:19. > :18:23.getting pregnant again on the drug. After David was born, she did ask
:18:23. > :18:27.what might have caused his heart problem. We did meet with a
:18:27. > :18:30.cardiologist at one of the scan appointments and he explained that,
:18:30. > :18:33.as far as he knew, there was no kind of environmental factors or it
:18:33. > :18:37.wasn't because of anything that we, as parents, had done, it was just
:18:37. > :18:41.one of those things, couldn't be prevented.
:18:41. > :18:45.What they didn't know was that David's heart problems might have
:18:45. > :18:49.been caused by the antidepressant she was taking.
:18:49. > :18:59.Three years earlier, on the other side of the Atlantic, a landmark
:18:59. > :19:00.
:19:00. > :19:04.legal battle had highlighted safety problems with another SSRI
:19:04. > :19:07.antidepressant called paroxetine. A mum from Philadelphia took the drug
:19:07. > :19:11.company to court because she believed it caused her son to have a
:19:11. > :19:15.serious heart defect. Her son, Lyam, is seven now and
:19:15. > :19:20.small for his age. You wouldn't know that he almost died when he was
:19:20. > :19:25.born. So this is the first operation.
:19:26. > :19:30.Oh, my goodness. How long was he like that? Four months.Were you
:19:30. > :19:33.able to pick him up when he was connected to all these things?
:19:33. > :19:42.just hold his hand and touch his little face and just, you know, sing
:19:42. > :19:47.to him, read to him when he was awake.
:19:47. > :19:54.When Michelle David got pregnant, she'd been on paroxetine for a few
:19:54. > :19:57.months, prescribed for anxiety. was just slight anxiety, something
:19:57. > :20:01.I've had my whole life. Were you told anything about taking the drug
:20:01. > :20:06.during pregnancy? No.Mush shell took paroxetine for the first three
:20:06. > :20:10.months of her pregnancy, just as Lyam's vital organs were forming. He
:20:10. > :20:14.was born with a valve missing in his heart and needed life-saving
:20:14. > :20:19.surgery. They had to stop his heart and shock
:20:19. > :20:24.it to get it going again once it was repaired and then you are just
:20:24. > :20:29.hoping and praying that, you know, he makes it out alive.
:20:29. > :20:34.Michelle began to wonder if her medication had caused his problems.
:20:34. > :20:37.Eventually, she found herself suing one of the world's biggest drug
:20:37. > :20:42.companies, the British firm, GlaxoSmithKline.
:20:42. > :20:46.Through a court order, her lawyers got access to GSK's confidential
:20:46. > :20:51.archive. What they found there was disturbing
:20:51. > :20:56.evidence about paroxetine's safety during pregnancy from studies done
:20:56. > :21:00.on animals. It may not be ethical to test drugs
:21:00. > :21:05.on pregnant women, but they are tested on animals before they can be
:21:05. > :21:08.approved for use in humans. When Michelle David's case came to this
:21:08. > :21:13.court in Philadelphia, shocking evidence was revealed from trials
:21:13. > :21:18.carried out by the manufacturer more than 30 years ago.
:21:18. > :21:23.Two groups of pregnant rats were compared. Those given paroxetine
:21:23. > :21:29.gave birth to a large number of dead babies. Those not given the drug all
:21:29. > :21:33.gave birth to live babies. In an internal report, a GSK
:21:33. > :21:39.scientist concluded: There remains the possibility that this compound
:21:39. > :21:43.could be t oh ritogenic at high levels, in other words" paroxetine
:21:43. > :21:48.might be harmful to babies in the womb. The problem with that is,
:21:48. > :21:52.internally, nobody responded to that, nobody did any studies, nobody
:21:53. > :21:57.tried to figure out whether or not the drug was inducing birth defects,
:21:57. > :22:01.they just simply took it to market. So there was this evidence as far
:22:01. > :22:07.back as the 80s that paroxetine might cause birth defects in animals
:22:07. > :22:10.at least? Without question. I was shocked. As I said, through
:22:10. > :22:15.the 30 days, I heard a lot of the evidence. It was just
:22:15. > :22:19.heart-breaking. I kind of felt like, how does no-one know that this is
:22:19. > :22:24.going on? Having heard all of the evidence,
:22:24. > :22:29.the jury decided that paroxetine had caused Lyam's heart defect and
:22:29. > :22:34.awarded him compensation of �2. 5 million dollars.
:22:34. > :22:38.Since it happened in 2009, GlaxoSmithKline hasn't appealed the
:22:38. > :22:42.verdict and, without admitting liability, the company has gone on
:22:42. > :22:48.to settle out of court more than 1,000 paroxetine heart defect cases
:22:48. > :22:54.in the US, paying more than $1 billion to affected families.
:22:54. > :22:58.Michelle David feels the result was justice, not simply for her own son.
:22:58. > :23:08.We were able to help so many other families, hundreds of families. Yes,
:23:08. > :23:29.
:23:29. > :23:34.that was really important. warn against taking paroxetine in
:23:34. > :23:40.early pregnancy, but not the other SSRI antidepressants. We found eight
:23:40. > :23:44.babies born with heart defects to mums who took a range of SSRIs while
:23:44. > :23:49.pregnant. The evidence about their risks is still not clear cut.
:23:49. > :23:54.But advice to doctors is about to be updated to take account of research
:23:54. > :23:58.that suggests SSRIs, as a group, could be linked to birth defects,
:23:58. > :24:05.including heart problems. The available evidence suggests that
:24:05. > :24:09.there is a risk associated with the SSRIs. We make quite a lot of effort
:24:09. > :24:16.really to discourage women from smoking or drinking even small
:24:16. > :24:19.amounts of alcohol in pregnancy and yet we are perhaps not saying the
:24:19. > :24:25.same about antidepressant medication which is going to be carrying
:24:25. > :24:30.similar, if not greater risks. There's between a one in a 200
:24:30. > :24:40.chance of babies being born with birth defects if the mother took
:24:40. > :24:44.SSRI. The Professor says that could rise to four in 200. For women
:24:44. > :24:47.mildly depressed, I don't think the risks are worth taking. Of course, a
:24:47. > :24:51.lot of pregnancies are unplanned. Do you think prescribers are giving
:24:51. > :24:55.enough thought to the risks when they prescribe these drugs to women
:24:55. > :24:59.of child bearing age? I think it's not just when a woman who's pregnant
:24:59. > :25:04.is sitting in front of you. I think it needs to be thought about with a
:25:04. > :25:09.woman who could get pregnant and that's the large majority of women
:25:09. > :25:16.aged between 15 and 45. Anna Wilson wasn't warned of an
:25:16. > :25:23.increased risk before she became pregnant when the SSRI was taken by
:25:23. > :25:26.her. Her son was born with a serious heart condition. If David's
:25:26. > :25:29.condition was preventible and it wasn't prevented, that's really,
:25:29. > :25:35.really awful. If somebody gave me a choice and said there's a risk, I
:25:35. > :25:39.would have stopped taking those tablets in a flash. Even the if you
:25:39. > :25:43.were told there was only a very small risk to the baby? I still
:25:43. > :25:53.wouldn't have taken that risk. You know, I wasn't given the choice.
:25:53. > :26:17.
:26:17. > :26:21.Lundbeck, the company that makes widely prescribed for two decades.
:26:21. > :26:26.Like all drugs, they couldn't be tested on pregnant women before they
:26:26. > :26:31.calm to the market. But is there a better way to monitor the safety of
:26:31. > :26:36.medicines during pregnancy so that problems can be pick #ed up earlier?
:26:36. > :26:40.In Belfast, there's a central registry that tracks babies whose
:26:40. > :26:45.mums took epilepsy medication while pregnant. It's voluntary, but the
:26:45. > :26:47.man who runs it says it has quickly identified safety problems and could
:26:47. > :26:52.easily be extended to cover all drugs.
:26:52. > :26:59.What I think is required would be mandatory registration of drugs
:26:59. > :27:04.taken during pregnancy. When a woman books in in the obstetric unit, it's
:27:04. > :27:09.routine for the midwife to take a history and to note down what drugs
:27:09. > :27:13.that woman's taken. How difficult would it be to have a tear-off sheet
:27:13. > :27:18.to accumulate data? It's not rocket science. Not rocket science, but
:27:18. > :27:22.it's still not happening. The MHRA says it's improving the way
:27:22. > :27:26.it monitors the safety of drugs taken in pregnancy.
:27:26. > :27:30.For every medicine that may be used in a woman of child-bearing
:27:30. > :27:33.potential, there will be a plan to gather that data. Increasingly, we
:27:33. > :27:37.use clinical records to limp the mother's health record with the
:27:37. > :27:41.baby's health record and that opens up the opportunity, if we can link
:27:41. > :27:45.to maternity units and hospital records, to have a very complete
:27:45. > :27:51.picture of the drugs that the foetus has been exposed to and its
:27:51. > :27:55.development. Back at Croydon, all that nursery
:27:55. > :27:59.teacher Jo Burrows can do is wait and hope that her baby has been
:27:59. > :28:06.unaffected by the medicine she's taking.
:28:06. > :28:12.I've worked with special needs children and if it happens, it
:28:12. > :28:17.happens, we are still going to love her no matter what.
:28:17. > :28:22.Protecting a mother's health without damaging her baby can be a difficult
:28:22. > :28:28.balance, but until women know the full risks, how can they make an
:28:29. > :28:33.informed choice about the pills they take during pregnancy?
:28:33. > :28:36.When celebrity tycoon Donald Trump promised to bring 6,000 jobs and a
:28:36. > :28:41.billion pound investment to Scotland to many it seemed an opportunity too