Prevention of unnecessary pregnancy terminations by counselling women on drug, chemical, and radiation exposure during the first trimester.
As part of a new approach to counselling pregnant women concerned about antenatal exposure to drugs, chemicals, or radiation, we measured their tendency to terminate their pregnancy by using a visual analogue scale (VAS). Analysis of 78 cases where women had less than 50% tendency to continue pregnancy before they were advised by us reveals that 61 decided to continue their pregnancy after the consultation (57 normal, healthy infants, four miscarriages) and 17 terminated. Women who continued their pregnancy significantly changed their tendency after we discussed relevant information with them (from 34.3 +/- 2.5% to 84.5 +/- 3.3%, P less than 0.00001), whereas most of those who eventually terminated pregnancy did not change their tendency to continue pregnancy beyond the 50% mark (from 24.8 +/- 5.4% to 45.1 +/- 9.8%) (P greater than 0.1). Only two of the women who terminated their pregnancy were exposed to teratogenic drugs; however, in most other cases, other obvious reasons, unrelated to the exposure in question, were identified by the women as leading reasons for termination. An appropriate intervention in early pregnancy can prevent unnecessary pregnancy terminations by correcting misinformation and thereby decreasing the unrealistically high perception of risk by women exposed to nonteratogens.