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| |  Failed Misoprostol Abortion Leads To Birth Defects LONDON, ENGLAND -- May 29, 1998 -- Misoprostol is a drug to treat gastrointestinal damage caused by non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug treatments. The manufacturer's label states that misoprostol is not to be used by pregnant women. However, misoprostol is commonly used to induce abortion in Brazil and in other countries in South and Central America where abortion is illegal. Misoprostol is not very effective in inducing abortions and exposure to the drug in utero can cause abnormalities in the fetus. Writing in this week's issue of The Lancet, Dr. Claudette Gonzalez and colleagues from Sao Paulo, Brazil, examined 42 infants who were born with congenital birth defects in Sao Paulo and whose mothers took misoprostol in an attempt to terminate their pregnancies. The mothers were also interviewed. The investigators aimed to define the birth defects caused by exposure to misoprostol during pregnancy and to offer an explanation of these defects. The most common physical effects of misoprostol in the infants were arthrogryposis (contractures of joints), shortness or absence of fingers or toes, tapered digits, syndactyly (fusion of digits), cranial-nerve defects, and hydrocephalus (abnormal amounts of cerebrospinal fluid in the ventricles of the brain). Dr. Gonzalez and colleagues suggest that misoprostol causes uterine contractions in pregnancy, which disrupt the blood supply to the brain in the fetus. Gonzalez and colleagues call for information on the effects of misoprostol during pregnancy to be made more widely available, so that women are dissuaded from misusing the drug. They also hope that greater awareness of the widespread use of misoprostol to induce abortions will lead to new public-health measures to prevent these tragic consequences.
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