Pregnancy warning

Press, 13 August 1980, Page 12

Pregnancy warning

NZPA .London Women are advised, not to become pregnant for two to three months after they stop taking the contraceptive pill to minimise ' the risk of having a spina bifida baby. For that time they should switch to another form of contraceptive device, according to two doctors who made a study into the spina bifida risk for babies when mothers had taken the pill in the months immediately be- , fore conception. The study showed that women who have taken the pill in the three months before becoming pregnant are two to thr«* times more likely to have a spina bifida baby than non-users. ■■ ' ’ " " ' h

More than 10,000 women in south Glamorgan who had their babies between January 1974 and 1976 took part in the study, by Dr Joan Andrews, a consultant in obstetrics at St David’s Hospital, Cardiff, and Dr Pravin Kasan, a registrar now working in Australia. It showed that of. the 28,959 babies born to pillusers, 18 had spina bifida — 0.63 per cent of the women. Of the 7620 babies bom to non pilDusers, only 19, or 0.25 per cent had the disease. The researchers stress that the increased risk they have found ’'should not be another cause for widespread abandonment -df o.ral contraception.”