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I already posted my research on another thread, but I am copying it to this one too, because I think anyone on Femara; who got pregant while on it (like me); who is considering taking; it or who wants it but their doctor is scared from the Canadian study to prescribe it needs to see it. Here's what I found out:
I'm currently 31 weeks pregnant with a Femara baby and 2 level II ultrasounds, one at 17 weeks and one at 29 weeks (because I'm over 35), showed no indications of any problems. I did a lot of research when the news reports on Femara came out as they scared me, and based on my research I plan on taking Femara again when I try for a second child. My research showed that most of the women who have reported birth defects turned out to have already been pregnant when taking the drug (the same thing can happen with Clomid). Also, I found a scientific analysis of the Canadian study that claims that Femara has a higher incidence of birth defects that complained that the Canadian study could have been skewed because a high proportion of the women taking the Femara of the 150 people they followed were older (already at a higher risk of birth defects), and it is also known that the incidence of birth defects is generally higher following infertility treatment, so because they only compared the percentage of defects with Femara to the percentage of defects with a group that had no fertility treatment whatsoever, you can't tell from the study whether the Femara would create any more risk of defect than any other fertility drug. That science group said that the Femara group should have been compared to groups undergoing other types of infertility treatment, not those who had no treatment . That scientific analysis also noted that the group of pregnant women studied that didn't take the drug (the control group) had an abormally low number of reported birth defects, so it might not be the best control group for comparison. According to the March of Dimes, 3-5% of babies in the United States are born with birth defects. The university of Iowa did a study which came out a few weeks ago that noted that 6.2 % of IVF babies have some sort of birth defect, 5% of IUI babies have some sort of birth defect and that the rate of birth defects in naturally conceived babies was 4.4%. In the Canadian study on Femara, the control group only had 1.8% with birth defects which is unusual, and the Femara group had about 4.7% which is not very far off of what would have been expected anyway, particularly as that group had a lot of older women. Plus the Femara group was not only made up of people who solely took Femara- some had taken other fertility drugs either before or with the Femara as well, which also could have skewed the results. The results of any research report can be misleading based on the data used behind the report. Based on my research, it's my opinion that the news reports were a whole lot of hoopla over a study that basically means nothing and appears to have been flawed, but everyone needs to decide for themselves. Hope this helps you guys.
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