Abstract
Background: Pregnancy care is one of the greatest challenges in medicine and it demands a special care in the use of drugs because of altered physiology. For the use of drugs during pregnancy immense precaution has to be taken because health of both mother and foetus may be affected.

Aims and Objectives: To study and evaluate the drug use pattern among inpatients of OBG Department in a tertiary care teaching hospital, to study and evaluate the pharmacological interventions in complicated pregnancies in obstetric ward in a tertiary care hospital, and to assess the World Health Organization (WHO) core prescription indicators.

Materials and Methods: Prospective observational study was carried out among inpatient of obstetric wards of tertiary care teaching hospital over a period of 3 months. All pregnant women diagnosed to have complications were included in the study. The data regarding demographic details, period of gestation, provisional diagnosis, and complete prescription were collected using specially designed proforma and were analyzed for drug use pattern, WHO core drug prescribing indicators and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) pregnancy drug risk category.

Result: Among 285 patients, 105 (37%) were primigravida and 180 (63%) were multigravida. Majority of them (82%) were in the age group of 20-30 years. Anemia is the most common condition complicating pregnancy, constituting 24% followed by oligohydramnios (13%), PIH (9%), hyperemesis gravidarum (7%) of overall complications, respectively. Haematinics and blood components (20%), antibiotics (13%) are the most commonly prescribed drugs followed by protein supplement (11%) and steroids (8%). As per FDA pregnancy drug category, category-B (41.17%) was most frequently prescribed followed by category-A and C each contributing to 29.41%. Percentage of drugs prescribed by generic name was 57% and from essential drug list it was 42%.

Conclusion: Haematinics, protein supplements, and antibiotics are the most commonly prescribed drugs. None of the drugs were from Category D and X. There was lesser number of drugs prescribed by generic name, which needs improvement.

Key words: Anemia; FDA Pregnancy Category; WHO Prescription Indicators