Objective: This article reviews up-to-date data on antibiotic therapy in pregnancy.
Design: Review article.
Setting: Department of Infectious Diseases, Military University Hospital Prague; Institute for the Care of Mother and Child, Prague.
Material and methods: Relevant literary sources have been considered, including articles in English indexed in Pubmed, monographies in English and articles in Czech.
Conclusions: Antibiotic therapy in pregnancy must be rational. Antibiotics with favorable risk-benefit ratio should be used whenever possible. To achieve this, physicians must be well versed in the topic of toxicity and teratogenicity of the most commonly used antibiotics. Several pharmacokinetic parameters are altered in pregnant women. Thus, dosage of some antibiotics should be adjusted (usually increased) accordingly. Antibiotic therapy in perinatal period and in early childhood might increase the risk of developing atopy and obesity.
Keywords: antibiotics; infection; pregnancy; teratogenicity pharmacokinetics..