Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry

In recent year, problems coused by the abuse of drugs have been analyzed in many cases, especially women's pregnancy. The purchasing of drugs without prescription, the misunderstanding of symptoms of pregnancy(such as vomiting, headache) as other ilnnesses, taking medicine during the pregnancy because of a chronic disease has caused many unfortunate cases. Apart from these cases, pregnant women may take several medicines such as anadyne, tranquilizers, hypnotics, and diuretics which also cause critical situations. According to Piper and his colleague's 1987 study, in average, pregnant women in the United States intake 3.1 kinds of additional drugs other than prenatal vitamins and mineral supplements. In those cases, both pregnant women and physicians anticipate inborn deformity. Most drugs which have whole body effects get to the unborn child via the placenta, however, many of these drugs do not have adverse effects(Shepard 1986, 1989). In general, drugs present a stronger effect to unborn children than they do to pregnant women due to the body's excretion and to the drug metabolism that occurs in the mother's body through the placenta. The effects of drugs on unborn children show different results, depending upon the type of drug, dosage, characteristics, gestational weeks, genetic characterisitics of the mother an body, and many other environmental factors.

Keywords Drugs;Teratogens;Pregnancy.