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Laura W. Bush Institute at Amarillo

InfantRisk Center

In the USA, over four million infants are born each year. Approximately 75% of these infants are at least initiallybreastfed by their mothers.

It is estimated that 15% or more of pregnant women will use antidepressants, anticonvulsants, antihypertensives, and numerous other medications. Patients may not feel comfortable with the advice given to them by their health care professionals, so they search the internet for advice from more authoritative sources of information.

Resources for these women are very limited.

Tom Hale, Ph.D., and the Laura W. Bush Institute for Women's Health are proposing to create the InfantRisk Center, which will provide the following resources
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  • Provide the largest source of data on the use of medications in breastfeeding mothers in the world
  • Provides a website and online databases to be used by every major university in the USA
  • Engages on web forum with more than 13,000 registered health care professionals from around the world
  • Will accept phone questions from women, physicians, and other health care providers about the use of specific drugs in pregnant or breastfeeding women
  • Disseminate information concerning the use of medications and other substances in pregnant and breastfeeding mothers
  • Produce a large clinical case management system that will ultimately provide evidence on the outcome of exposure to drugs and what women and their health care professionals should expect

Goals and Objectives

Distribute to USA Health Care Professionals and to Mothers

  • Drug risk information based on evidence
  • Reduce misinformation
  • Reduce unnecessary pregnancy terminations
  • Reduce unnecessary lactation termination
  • Provide health care professionals with accurate and understandable risk information and registry data
  • Provide and advise physicians on alternative medications

Create a New Body of Research Information

  • Develop new pregnancy registries for the pharmaceutical industry
  • Channel thousands of pregnant and breastfeeding women into these registries
  • Develop a major set of case studies in pregnant subjects
  • Develop a major set of case studies in breastfeeding subjects