The New England Journal of Medicine publishes two studies with unclear results on the long-term safety of repeatedly administering steroid medications to pregnant women in order to prevent low lung development of the baby before premature delivery.
Although they say they are rather positive, let's see: one suggests that there is hardly any evidence that it is a dangerous practice, while the other warns that it could be a cause of cerebral palsy in babies.
In animal tests they warned about the risk of affecting brain development and body size. But new studies showed that pregnant women who were injected with betamethasone steroid gave birth to babies with blood pressure, body measurements and normal development at 2 or 3 years of age. The study conducted by the University of Adelaide in Australia, followed 521 babies whose mothers received steroid treatments and 526 babies of mothers who received placebo.
84% of the first group did not show any disability at 2 years of age, compared to 81% of the second group, who after the first steroid injection received placebo. The most relevant difference was the attention problems of the first group, but they affirm that it was not very valuable.
The other study, conducted by a team at Columbia University in New York, did not find such differences between their groups, but found that 2.9% of fetuses treated with steroids suffered cerebral palsy, compared with 0.5% of those who received placebo.
The issue is that they suggest that it is necessary to study whether cerebral palsy is a consequence of steroid use.
As we said, steroid drugs are usually given to help mature the baby's lungs that will be born preterm thus avoiding the problems that result from it, but sometimes, the baby is not born as soon as expected, so The question arises whether this drug should be continued. The answer is usually yes, the problem is that it is not known with certainty if it is a safe practice.
