Could the steroid, prednisolone, help women to avoid repeated miscarriages?

How £1-a-month drug could end the misery of miscarriages
article in the Daily Mail

Extract 1:

"Thousands of women could be spared the misery of repeated miscarriages with a pill that costs just £1 a month, it emerged yesterday.

Researchers have found fresh evidence that a third of unexplained miscarriages may be caused by an overactive immune system.

They believe treatment with a common steroid, used for asthma and allergies, can curb the immune response and protect an unborn baby in the crucial early weeks of pregnancy.

The findings offer hope to around 9,000 women who have unexplained miscarriages each year in Britain.

In preliminary trials, around three-quarters of women who had a history of miscarriages had successful pregnancies after taking the steroid.

Dr Siobhan Quenby, who is carrying out the pioneering work at Liverpool University, is now beginning a larger trial to make sure the results are not simply down to the placebo effect."

Extract 2

"In a new trial which began last month, Dr Quenby plans to test these results by giving half of the women she recruits a dummy placebo and the rest a dose of the steroid.

Prednisolone’s side effects include mood swings and increased appetite.

However, most women would need to take it for just three months."

I suggest that it is important that any women who get prescribed for this problem be clearly informed that they need to cut out salt and salty food while taking this steroid drug, otherwise they are at great risk of fluid retention and consequent avoidable weight gain. - The fluid retention/weight gain is responsible for the mood swings and increased appetite and can be avoided by sticking to low salt intake. This would also lower the risk of developing many other health problems.

See Sodium in foods

and prescribed steroids and HRT

The cervical cancer vaccine, Gardasil, has been linked to many cases of serious adverse reactions, including several deaths.

Cervical cancer drug Gardasil linked to deaths

Extract from Telegraph article:

"Fears have been raised over the safety of a cervical cancer vaccine which health officials plan to give all 12-year-old girls, after it was revealed that the drug has been linked to several deaths.

Three young women are reported to have died days after the drug Gardasil was administered, while the jab is also suspected of triggering "adverse reactions" in 1,700 patients. The figures were uncovered by campaigners who made a freedom of information request in the US, where the vaccine was approved for use a year ago.

Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, which extracted the data, said: "Reports on the vaccine read like a catalogue of horrors."

The women – aged 12, 19 and 22 – suffered heart attacks or blood clots after being injected with Gardasil, which protects against the sexually transmitted human papilloma virus which causes most cases of cervical cancer. Hundreds of others reported suffering what could be adverse reactions, including paralysis, seizures and miscarriages.

The news comes just days after the announcement that the drug would be added to the childhood immunisation programme."

About screening tests for Down's Syndrome

Down's syndrome test 'risk to healthy babies' - Telegraph

Extract:

"Screening tests for Down's syndrome could lead women to undergo needless invasive tests and risk miscarrying healthy babies, a doctor warned yesterday.

A retired doctor writing in a medical journal has cast doubt on the value of using ultrasound screening to establish a couple's risk of having a baby with Down's.

The test, done at 11 or 12 weeks into the pregnancy, measures the fluid at the back of the foetus's neck and this, together with maternal age, is calculated to give an individual risk of Down's.

Parents use this score to decide whether to have a test called an amniocentesis. This involves taking a sample of fluid from the womb.

The test determines if the baby does have Down's, but carries a one in 200 risk of causing a miscarriage.

Dr Hylton Meire, formerly of King's College Hospital, wrote in Ultrasound that if all pregnant women underwent the amniocentesis test it could lead to the miscarriage of 3,200 healthy babies a year."


Some helpful advice for pregnant women - http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/pregnant_mothers.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)