Babies died in a drug tragedy. Why did their mothers receive Viagra?

Earlier this week, a study came to a surprising and heartbreaking halt. A Dutch drug trial on the effects of sildenafil – the generic version of Viagra – on a rare but serious fetal disorder was discontinued after 11 infants born to mothers who took the drug during their pregnancy died, reports yesterday The Guardian (1965)

But why did pregnant women receive this medication at first?

Although the use of a drug against erectile dysfunction in men may seem unusual, curious treatments – and studies on how this can help particular condition of fetal development – actually been around for years. [7 Ways Pregnant Women Affect Babies]

Viagra is in the category of medications called vasodilators, which means that it opens the blood vessels, which increases blood flow. The effect can give a boost to men when they need more blood flow to a particular area. And under all the conditions that the Dutch research team has examined, stimulating blood flow from a pregnant woman to the placenta could have really helped the fetus.

The study focused on pregnant women with fetuses who had an early fetal condition. growth restriction. In simple terms, the condition basically means that there is not enough blood flow to the placenta, said Dr. Ahmet Baschat, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Fetal Therapy at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. This can happen either because the mother's blood vessels do not provide enough blood to the placenta, or because the baby's blood vessels can not generate healthy blood flow. Whatever the case may be, the result is the same: the amount of oxygen and nutrients flowing to the fetus is very small.

The condition is rare – Baschat estimated that between 0.5 and 0.8% of pregnancies are reached – but severe. "[The placenta] loses the ability to work well before the scheduled date," Baschat told Live Science, and mothers often give birth early, between 24 and 32 weeks. Only 40 to 50% of these babies survive. (Indeed, among the women in the trial who were in the control group – which means they did not receive the drug – nine of the babies died.)

But, each additional day that a baby stays in a healthy uterus, Baschat says, adds an additional 2 percent probability of survival. "Nothing is worth the gestational age," he said. Thus, if sildenafil was able to open the blood vessels connecting the mother and the fetus and to ensure that the child would stay longer in the uterus, he could mitigate the consequences of An incurable disease

. This is not the only reason a pregnant woman could take sildenafil. Dr. Uri Elkayam, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, said he prescribes sildenafil to pregnant women with high blood pressure pulmonary – a condition in which pulmonary arterial pressure is too high. Unlike the restriction of fetal growth, however, this lung problem can also occur in patients who are not pregnant. [Viagra Goes Generic: 5 Interesting Facts About the ‘Little Blue Pill’]

But "recently, management [of the condition in pregnant women] included sildenafil, and in general, this was helpful," Elkayam told Live Science. With a few other medications, sildenafil has prolonged the life expectancy of mothers with this lung problem, although Elkayam has suspected that until the exact reason behind the recent deaths seen in the Study be understood, its results will radically change the way other doctors prescribe the drug.

Indeed, the exact reason is not clear. Baschat said that it is also curious to see what official finding the Dutch research team arrives about the cause of these deaths. The study was part of an international survey on how sildenafil could help limit fetal growth, and previous research – also done in humans – showed that the drug does not have any effect on the growth of fetal growth. did not improve the circumstances or prolonged the duration of the fetus. This earlier research concluded, however, that the drug was safe to give to pregnant women.

"The question I have is: if someone does a lawsuit and that it shows a negative result, why would you then do another lawsuit?" Baschat said. It could turn out that other factors contributed to the surprising number of deaths in this study, but "in the end, it's important to share the exact details – we need to know what happened" , he said. on Live Science .