Health and safety of pregnant and postpartum women in intensive care unit

Abstract

In the pregnancy-puerperal cycle, women may develop complications requiring admission to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). In this context, it is necessary to give special attention to pharmacotherapy used by the patient, evaluating the risks / benefits of drugs for the pregnant woman and the fetus, because the placenta is a permeable barrier and the effects can be lethal or teratogenic. In lactation may also be situations in which mother needs pharmacological treatment and, therefore, it must be assessed the risks the baby will be exposed due to the presence of certain metabolites in breast milk. Potential drug interactions (PDIs) are also an important factor to be considered during the pharmacotherapy of women who are pregnant or breastfeeding. In an ICU setting, use of more than one drug for the same patient is quite common and, therefore, are more likely to occur drug interactions that may aggravate patient's condition. Pharmacists should be a keystone in ensuring the safety and effectiveness of drug treatment dispensed to hospitalized patients. This work will be based on the evaluation of pharmaceutical prescriptions, in order to (I) identify and classify PDIs described in the literature, (II) evaluate and classificate the risk of medication during pregnancy and (III) lactation of patients admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Women's Hospital professor José Aristodemo Pinotti - Center for Integral Attention to Women's Health - CAISM - UNICAMP. At the end of the study period, it will be possible to know the prevalence, the degree of risk of medication and the severity of PDIs, establishing its relation with age and length of stay. (AU)