TUESDAY, June 18, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Two new studies offer reassurance that using the diabetes drug metformin before and during pregnancy is not linked to birth defects. The latest findings, which apply to men planning to conceive with their partners or women in early pregnancy, contradict a 2022 study that found metformin use by men in the three months before they conceived a baby was associated with a 40% increased risk of birth defects in their children. “Conventionally and traditionally, the mother has been the focus when it comes to pregnancy and when it comes to fetal health and the health of the newborn.
What we are increasingly finding is that the father is also important,” Dr. Ran Rotem , who authored the new study on the paternal use of metformin and birth defects, told CNN . “We know that diabetes itself is not good when it is in the mother, and we are finding evidence that it’s also tricky for the fathers,” Rotem noted.
“If you can manage diabetes with just changing your lifestyle -- doing more exercise, watching your diet -- that’s probably good, and that’s helpful anyways. But if you have to be medicated, it seems like metformin is a safe choice for both.” The raised risk of birth defects seen in earlier research could have been associated with diabetes itself or with related illnesses, instead of the medication, noted Rotem, a researcher at the Harvard T.
H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. “When we think about a medication, we a.
