Pharmacy Mix-Up: Pregnant Woman Given Abortion Drug

Taking any kind of medication while pregnant is scary. I remember being nervous about the anti-convulsants I had to take - drugs that I knew could cause birth defects, but that neither I nor my babies could do without at the time. I remember worrying about the anti-emetics too, and the scare I got over the pharmacist's reaction to the megadoses of folic acid I was prescribed to counterbalance the anti-convulsants.

It was a scary time!

Luckily, my doctors have pretty much always prescribed the right medications in the right doses. And the few times there has been a problem, the pharmacist has caught it & suggested a solution.

Not so for a young pregnant woman in Colorado, who accidentally received and took medication intended for another woman. The pharmacy gave her a drug that could potentially cause a miscarriage, the result of a lapse in following protocols designed to keep us all safe.

Could this happen to you? Of course it could, but there are steps you can take to increase your safety when taking prescription drugs. These steps don't replace the care your doctor and pharmacist should take when giving you medication, but they can help you to catch errors they might otherwise miss, before something tragic happens. Be safe by taking an active role in your own health care.

This content is copyrighted. Please feel free to share by sending others a link to this page, or contact the author about purchasing reprint rights. Thanks to Emily Cahal for the beautiful photo.