Prescription Medication Use and Baseline Health Status of Women with Live Birth Deliveries in a National Data Network

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) increasingly uses administrative databases to conduct surveillance of medications used during pregnancy. To assess adverse fetal effects, administrative records must be linked between the mother and infant. The Sentinel Initiative's Mother-Infant Linkage table provides a large cohort of linked deliveries from national, regional, and public insurance claims in the U.S. for the FDA to conduct surveillance.

The study objectives were to describe baseline health conditions and prescription medication use during pregnancy in cohorts of women with a live birth delivery linked and not linked to an infant.