Trimethropin in early stages of pregnancy - birth defects ???

[MarieEnn]

Help ! I just found out I'm 5 weeks pregnant and I'm really worried because I was prescribed a 7 day course of trimethoprim for a UTI 2 weeks ago and I didnt know I was pregnant.

I have roughly calculated that when i started the AB's it would have been 1-2 weeks since conception which from what i have read is the crucial time for neural development. Just by chance i started taking folic acid with 4 days left on the trimethoprim course so i hope this helped???

I think the placenta and blastocyst forms at this stage - and I'm really concerned about the risks of birth defects.

I saw my GP who said I had to wait till 12 wk scan and she couldn't say it would be fine - just that 'its not ideal'. I dont think I can wait that long!

Has anyone experienced or know of a similar situation ?

Im just so worried and really really hope its all going to fine and cant celebrate my pregnancy yet

I'm possibly in the same boat, a few days before I know. Had to give up the ab's after 5 days as came out in a rash.

No answers, other than don't give up hope, its amazing what babies have through the first few weeks of pregnancy that we didn't know about and yet are OK

I have just been through this precise situation.

That medicine has many 'possible' side effects for the baby, including higher chance of developing spina bifida and having heart defects. There is nothing reassuring they can tell you at the 12 week scan other than that the pregnancy is continuing, which is a good sign as the majority of miscarriages occur because the fetus is not formed properly or has problems in some way.

The 20 week scan will tell you what you need to know as then they can check the spine and heart valves. I was so consumed with worry about defects that I didn't tell anyone I was pregnant until after this scan.

I'm sorry I sound so negative but I've struggled so much with this myself and the fear of the unknown takes over your whole mind and affects everything else.

However, there is a tiny chance of problems in every pregnancy and being in these circumstances only increases that tiny chance by another tiny bit. So you are still so much more likely to have a healthy baby.

My doctor said that if I wanted to research the effects then use google and I'd have exactly the same resources as her! She was happy to explain anything I found as I'm sure your own doctors will be. You could also discuss the merits of taking double the recommended dose of folic acid to counteract any negative effects.

The best thing to do is also the hardest, don't think about it. x

This very good German website says that according to studies trimethoprim is a folic acid antagonist, however that there is no evidence of teratogenic effects in human pregnancies, despite some teratogenic effects in animal testing.

The claim that the folic acid antagonist effect could lead to problems with neural tube effects apparently could not be proved, and there is evidence that the human folic acid metabolism (? sorry, translating adhoc, not quite sure whether this is the right word) is less fragile, than in bacteria.

There is no evidence of fetotoxicity in the 2nd and 3rd trimester.

The site suggests that while other first line treatments such as cephalosporines, and penicillins are to be preferred, that when indicated it can be used in the first trimester, too.

My adult daughter just found out she’s 6 weeks pregnant but after she had taken a 5 day course of Trimethoprim 4 weeks ago which although the risk is low can cause birth defects I understand if taken in the first 12 weeks .She lives abroad and her GP there didn’t seem to know wether she should be taking the 5mg or the 0.8mg dose although he said it was safe to take both .I’m worried she didn’t get the correct advise as he didn’t seem to know that she might need extra scans etc . What dose of folate have other people taken in this situation which must be quite common ?Thanks worries for my first grandchild

I should add she wasn’t planning a pregnancy so wasn’t on any folic acid for the 3 months before conception etc