Background: Despite the lack of adequate studies on the safety of drugs
in pregnancy, surprisingly, available evidence shows that pregnant
women still take large number of drugs. Objectives: The study aim was
to determine drug utilization pattern and predictors of number of
medications used by pregnant women. Methods: This was a cross-sectional
survey of 369 pregnant women attending a secondary health facility.
Data were collected using interviewer-administered questionnaire.
Descriptive and inferential statistics using the Chi-Square test were
carried out with level of significance set at p<0.05. Results: Three
hundred and sixty-nine women were interviewed. Their mean age was 27.7
years (SD\ub1 4.78) and the mean number of pregnancies was 2.46
(SD\ub1 1.34). On average, 2.62 medications were taken, with the
lowest being 1 and the highest being 12 different medications during
the course of pregnancy. Those who were on more than 2 medications were
more likely to be older than 30 years, had lower education and with
history of associated medical conditions. All participants were on one
form of supplements or the other, nearly half had used antimalarials,
12.8%, 5.8% 2.4% were on antibiotics, anti-hypertensive and
anti-retroviral medications respectively. All the medications
prescribed were from category A, B, C, N, and none from category D and
X. Conclusion: Varieties of medications were used during the course of
pregnancy among this population, however, most of these drugs were
still within safety profile