Crinone/progesterone info?

[mountainborn]

Help!

After two m/c, I asked my midwife to test my progesterone asap with this pregnancy and was/am willing to supplement in hopes that it would help. I had a level of 5 at 17 dpo, so definitely felt like this was worth trying. My first positive test was May 25. Hadn't had any cramping or spotting, still haven't.

After three days of haggling with my insurance to get the medicine covered, I took the first dose of Crinone last night and read through the info pamphlet - risks to the fetus include cleft palate & abdominal wall defects. Time for me to freak out; I born with a cleft and my kids have an increased risk already because of that.

Then I kept reading and realized that the studies mentioned on the pamphlet involved less than 50 women! One of the babies had a cleft palate. How on earth is that supposed to guarantee product safety? Today I started googling and was reading some OBs comments re: safety, one said that since the 50 women in his practice that used it had no ill effects it's probably fine. Another actually said that the risk of a cleft is not that big of a deal because "they are so easy to fix nowadays". Right. Because repeated surgery isn't difficult for a small child...

It is possible that that one cleft palate had nothing to do with the hormone, but what I'm wondering is if any of you have heard of larger studies involving this drug.

Thanks in advance!

[Treasuremapper]

This is really interesting information. I didn't know anything about it. Do you have links? I took progesterone during pregnancy and my daughter had a birth defect. It may be totally unrelated. I never considered the possibility that the progesterone could have had something to do with it. My daughter's birth defect was NOT cleft palate; however, many babies with my daughter's birth defect also have cleft palate.

[olive&pimiento]

I don't have any information on Crinone, but I just wanted to suggest natural progesterone suppositories. I have taken them for two pregnancies now and I know that our RE gives out info that there has been no adverse results with this type of progesterone therapy. I have them made up at a compounding pharmacy.

[mountainborn]

FDA site

page 9 of the pdf has the bit about risks to the fetus.

this is all the same stuff listed in the pamphlet that comes with the medication.

[mountainborn]

Also, on Crinone's website they say it is a natural progesterone, from plant sources, not synthetic.

http://www.crinoneusa.com/patients/advantages.html

I'll have my levels tested on Monday and if they are great I'll probably switch to a lower dose of the wild yam root cream I got from an apothecary.

I feel like from the study mentioned that the cleft could have been a coincidence, but I'm pretty mad that larger studies haven't been done on a drug that is so commonly used.

[birthangeldoula]

I'm currently taking Crinone and when I asked my OB about the risks, he said he hasn't seen any ill effects in his practice from the drug. My son was born with a heart defect, and I wasn't on any sort of progesterone supplement for my pregnancy with him. I'm not too worried about the side effects of taking the progesterone, I'm worried about the effects of not taking it in the first place. I've had 2 miscarriages in a row and I wasn't on progesterone during those pregnancies.