Pregnancy Health Enhancement

Alcohol:

Primary care physicians are recommended to screen all adult patients for the misuse of alcohol. The primary goal for alcoholics is complete abstinence. Intervention options include behavioral therapy and therapy with health professionals which specialize in abuse. Medications are available which can either reduce the craving, or medication which causes an adverse physical reaction if alcohol is combined with it. Alcoholism treatment medications should not be used routinely in pregnancy due to potential risk of fetal harm. These medications which curb craving include nalmefene, also known as Revex, which is category B (animal studies revealed no fetal harm) has been found to be effective for the prevention of relapse (12). Another anti-craving agent is naltrexone (category C with embryocidal effect at high dose in animal studies) which showed a significantly greater rate of abstinence than placebo (13). Agents which cause aversion reactions after drinking alcohol include Antabuse (disulfiram) and calcium carbimide which are category C (fetal harm reported early in pregnancy). These agents were also found to produce a greater than 50% rate of abstinence rate in outpatient alcoholics over a 9 year period and were tolerated well long term (14). An abrupt discontinuation of alcohol may not only lead to a life-threatening withdrawal syndrome, it may place patients at higher risk of stroke. To find out why, look here. On the other hand, alcohol use in select cases may help non-alcoholics achieve several long term health benefits.