Pregnancy & Lactation : הריון/הנקה

4.6   Fertility, pregnancy and lactation

Pregnancy and Lactation
Fertility
Animal studies only indicate a potential negative influence of metronidazole on the male reproductive system if high doses lying well above the maximum recommended dose for humans were administered.

Contraception in males and females
See section 4.5 ‘contraceptive drugs’

Pregnancy
The safety of the use of metronidazole during pregnancy has not sufficiently been demonstrated. In particular, reports on the use during early pregnancy are contradictory. Some studies indicated an increased rate of malformations. In animal studies with metronidazole no teratogenicity was observed (see section 5.3).
During the first trimester, METRONIDAZOLE FRESENIUS 500 MG/100 ML should only be used to treat severe life-threatening infections, if there is no safer alternative.
During the second and third trimester, METRONIDAZOLE FRESENIUS 500 MG/100 ML may also be used to treat other infections if its expected benefits clearly outweigh any possible risk.

Breast-feeding
Since metronidazole is secreted into breast milk, nursing should be stopped during therapy. Also after the end of the therapy with metronidazole, nursing should not be resumed before another 2 – 3 days because of the prolonged half- life period of metronidazole.