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Pharmacy/morphine while pregnant

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Expert: Sudesh Samuel - 10/25/2009


Question
My niece is 8 months pregnant and has kidney stones she recently went to the emergency room only to be given morphine for the pain.  She had a bad reaction to the morphine and was given something to counter act it.  Could this harm her child?

Answer
Hello Pauline, short-term, low-dose morphine has not been found to put an unborn child at risk although there is not much information on humans and data is mostly based on animal studies. There is however substantial risk should high-dose, prolonged use occur at term. Any possible harm in this case may be more related to the nature of the bad reaction and it's associated symptoms which should be discussed witht the treating doctor.

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Sudesh Samuel

Expertise

I take questions on medication, pharmaceuticals and supplements. This includes areas of medication safety, queries related to drug profiles like pharmacology, side effects, interactions, precautions and contraindications, storage conditions, administration, supplement uses along with their interactions, precautions and side effects.

Experience

I am a licenced and practicing pharmacist specialising in the provision of healthcare communications material and drug information. I have run a drug information service at a national, tertiary, teaching hospital where my duties included managing several pharmacists in the development of continual education, providing drug information throughout the hospital and analyzing new and existing drugs for inclusion into the hospital formulary. I have been involved in several healthcare committees including patient safety, adverse drug reaction monitoring, antibiotic guidelines as well as a pharmacy and therapeutics committee. I was an on-call pharmacist with the national drug and poisons information centre. My research focus has been on medication review and I have presented findings on a renal medication review service and also published a review article on halting the allergic march in the World Allergy Organization Journal.

Organizations
Institute for Medication Management - http://www.medicationreview.net

Publications
World Allergy Organization Journal, Vision Reborn, Medical Grapevine, National University Hospital Pharmacy and Therapeutics Newsletter, National University Hospital Adverse Drug Reaction Newsletter, National Healthcare Group Adverse Drug Reaction Newsletter, suite101

Education/Credentials
Master of Health Service Management, Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy with Honours

Awards and Honors
Valedictorian

Past/Present Clients
Various healthcare practices

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