Q: My wife is now in the 8th month of pregnancy. During the last 8 months she has suffered from repeated episodes of cold & sore throat and all the doctors prescribed antibiotics which cured the problem. She had the first episode in the 2nd month and was prescribed Amoxydar, second time was during the 4th month and recently at the end of 6th month. Augmentin was given to her during this period. She again has this problem and is on Amoxydar. Could you please give me more information on why the gynaecologists prefer to use this medicene for any cold/thoat infections? Is it safe during pregnancy? If it is safe then why does the FDA put these medicines in Category B?. regards and thanks

A:There is gross overuse of antibiotics in India. Some surveys suggest up to 50% of antibioitics are administered without clinical need. Cold and cough is invariably due to viral infections. Many bad throat cases are also viral in nature. Antibiotics are not needed in all these cases. Patients get cured due to time factor and not due to medicines. Augmentin (a combination of amoxycillin + clavulanic acid) is Category B-1 which is defined as drugs which have been taken by only a limited number of pregnant women without an increase in the frequency of malformations or other direct or indirect harmful effects on human foetus having been obsereved. Amoxydar brand does not appear on the International Drug Data of reputed manufacturers. It appears to be containing amoxycillin. If so, its effect will be similar to Augmentin. The administration of the above antibiotics is most unlikely to have any deleterious effect on the baby.