Link to i newspaper report **EDITED BY MNHQ**

[sugarlips2015]

Woman given opiate painkiller for ‘muscle strain’ when she was pregnant ends up fighting for her life in a coma with a brain damaged baby
inews.co.uk/news/real-life/mother-given-opiate-painkiller-muscle-strain-when-pregnant-ends-up-fighting-for-her-life-in-a-coma-with-a-brain-damaged-baby-and-unable-to-have-more-children/

That’s so awful

Very sad story, but nowhere does it say the dihydrocodeine actually caused the premature birth/brain damage. Many women have to take opiates in pregnancy and their babies are fine. This just seems like tabloid scaremongering.

Err actually if you read the article there's a heck of a lot more to the story than she took a drug and then had complications. She had major blood loss, and an early cesarian.

In fact 1000s of women take pethidine whilst in labour which is an opiate.

Sometimes these headlines go for the shock factor.
It wouldn't sound as exciting if they said: Woman had ruptured ovary and major bleeding of unknown cause leading to a coma and her baby being delivered early with the risk of brain damage.

I am sure there is lots more to this.
Too much oxygen given to premature babies causes blindness, so maybe that is why hyperbaric oxygen is not being given.
There has clearly been some sort of catastrophic event or bleed. Opiates wouldn't cause a ruptured ovary.
It sounds awful. Poor woman and poor baby, but it sounds like confused, sensationalist reporting.

This is a really sad story.

Your title is very misleading though. There’s no evidence that the painkiller was the issue here.

It's possible that whatever was causing the pain that the opiate was prescribed for (the ruptured ovary maybe?) may have lead to the complications. It's not purely a matter of she took the drug and her baby suffered brain damage.

The heading should really be 'Woman given opiate painkiller for ‘muscle strain’ when she was pregnant ends up fighting for her life in a coma with a brain damaged baby with no evidence opiate painkiller had anything to do with it.'

The only 'evidence' is her saying she wonders if it was that. Obviously it's very tragic, but quite irresponsible reporting.

That's the sort of thing that could upset a lot of pregnant women with no actual evidence behind it :( my MIL won't take ibuprofen as her friend died from taking it, so therefore it's dangerous. No consideration for the fact that he may have been allergic or that their may have been another reason, just that ibuprofen kills and that's that...

Really irresponsible article and post. There is no evidence that the painkiller caused this awful situation.

Evening everyone. Thanks for the reports. OP, just to let you know that we had a fair few reports from other MNers who were concerned that the heading of your thread was a little misleading.

We can see where they're coming from and whilst we don't want to stop folk discussing this very sad story, which is obviously already in the public domain, we felt it was a good idea to tweak your heading.

Hope that makes sense.

Very irresponsible article. There is absolutely no suggestion the painkillers caused any of the issues.
Complete scaremongering.

Tragic for the family but as PP have said, there’s no evidence that the dihydrocodeine caused any of the issues.

I was given that and pethidene during my labour and I was fine, as I imagine the majority of women are.

It’s possible that this woman had an underlying condition that was affected by the opiates/stress of labour/ any number of things.