The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)has warned that consuming opioid pain relievers like codeine, oxycodone or hydrocodone just before or during early pregnancy can increase the risk of certain birth defects, especially congenital heart defects.
The warning extends to prescription painkillers including Vicodin, Oxycontin and Tylenol-3, as well as generic versions of these. The overall risk for any individual woman is still relatively modest, according to the CDC, and the study examined only prescription use of the drugs, not illicit use. Congenital heart defects are one of the more common birth defects, affecting nearly 40,000 infants in the US. Many of these will die from the condition in the first year of life, and those that survive may require numerous surgeries. Exposure to the opioid painkillers doubled the risk of having an infant with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, one of the most critical heart defects.
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