Is aspirin safe during pregnancy?
Gynaecologists have warned pregnant women only to take aspirin if advised by their doctor, after two conflicting reports were published about the drug. Last week a group of Danish scientists suggested women taking aspirin or similar painkillers could be at a higher risk of miscarriage. But now a second piece of research, by the Institute of Health Sciences in Oxford, claims that low doses of the drug can actually reduce the risk of having a stillbirth, premature birth, or developing the potentially fatal condition pre-eclampsia. For the second report, researchers reviewed 39 previous studies of more than 30,000 women to assess the benefits of anti-platelet drugs, such as aspirin. They found that women who had taken the drugs had a 15 per cent reduced risk of pre-eclampsia, an eight per cent reduction in premature birth and 14 per cent less chance of their baby dying in the womb. Pre-eclampsia is a combination of high blood pressure and the build up of protein in the urine. Experts do n
