Pred 1/5/10/20/30/50 Use In Pregnancy & Lactation

Pregnancy: During pregnancy, PRED should only be used when the benefits outweigh the potential risks. The lowest effective dose of PRED needed to maintain adequate disease control should be used.
Animal studies indicate that administration of pharmacological doses of glucocorticoids during pregnancy may increase the fetus risk of intrauterine growth retardation, adult cardiovascular and/or metabolic disease and may have an effect on the glucocorticoid receptor density, and neurotransmitter turnover or neurobehavioral development.
Prednisone has caused cleft palate formation in animal experiments. There is an ongoing discussion on the possibility of an increased risk of oral cleft formation in the human fetus as a result of the administration of glucocorticoids during the first trimester. If glucocorticoids are administered towards the end of pregnancy, there is a risk of atrophy of the fetal adrenal cortex, which may necessitate replacement therapy in the newborn, which has to be slowly reduced.
Breastfeeding: Glucocorticoids pass in small amounts into breast milk (up to 0.23% of an individual dose). For doses up to 10 mg daily, the amount taken via breast milk lies below the detection threshold. So far, no damage to infants has been reported. Nevertheless, glucocorticoids should only be prescribed when the benefits to mother and child outweigh the risks. Because the milk/plasma concentration ratio increases with doses above 10 mg/day (e.g. 25% of the serum concentration are found in the breast milk with 80 mg prednisone daily), it is recommended to discontinue breastfeeding in such cases.