Can Pregnant Women Take Livalo?
Livalo® (
pitavastatin) is a prescription medicine used to treat
high cholesterol. It belongs to a group of medications called "
statins." Livalo is a pregnancy Category X medication, which means that it is not recommended for use in pregnant women.
What Is Pregnancy Category X?
The U.
S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) uses a pregnancy category system to classify the possible risks to a fetus when a specific medicine is taken during pregnancy. Pregnancy Category X is given to medicines that show problems to the fetus in animal studies or in human use of the medication. With this category, the potential risks clearly outweigh the potential benefits.
Animal studies do not indicate that Livalo increases the risk for birth defects. However, giving large doses to pregnant rabbits caused miscarriages.
This medication has not been studied in pregnant women. There have been rare reports of problems, such as miscarriages and birth defects, possibly due to the use of statins during pregnancy. However, it does not appear that these medications significantly increase the risk for these problems.
Theoretically, statins such as Livalo could cause
problems during pregnancy because
cholesterol is necessary for normal fetal development. Cholesterol and
triglyceride levels may increase during any pregnancy without being harmful. This is because the
effects of high cholesterol do not normally cause problems for many years (or even decades). Therefore, if a woman is not treated for high cholesterol during pregnancy, it is unlikely to impact her long-term health.
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