Can you take Ibuprofen while pregnant?

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Pregnancy
Taking care of yourself with baby on the way.

Ibuprofen during Pregnancy

One thing that almost all doctors agree on: do NOT take ibuprofen in the third trimester of your pregnancy, particularly after about 32 weeks. The reason for this is that as your due date nears, drugs like ibuprofen (NSAIDs) may cause premature closure of a major blood vessel near the baby's heart called the ductus arteriosus. If this happens before your baby is born (and breathing air), it will probably die.

Before 32 weeks, things are a bit more controversial.

A lot of doctors would probably advise against taking ibuprofen early in pregnancy (during the first 8 weeks or so), simply because we know that that that is when your baby's organs are being formed and ibuprofen has never been scientifically proven to be safe at that time. (It may or may not be. We really don't yet know for sure.)

Between those two time periods (i.e. approximately 8 and 32 weeks gestation), a lot of us think that occasional ibuprofen use is reasonably safe, at least if it is used only in small doses (say, 200 to 400 mg, maybe even 600 mg once or twice) and only for limited amounts of time.

There aren't any super-clear guidelines that I know of, but I would definitely recommend that you avoid using ibuprofen regularly during pregnancy, for instance for chronic headaches or anything like that.

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