Useful websites
American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)
The AAP makes a wealth of well-formulated advice available on its website. The e-Archive of the AAP’s official journal, Pediatrics, provides a browse and search ability for all papers published since 1948. Abstracts and some of the articles are available free of charge, otherwise a subscription is required.
British Association of Perinatal Medicine
The BAPM is a UK association of healthcare professionals from various specialties involved in the delivery of perinatal care. It has been responsible for the development of neonatal guidelines and standards as well as supporting neonatal and perinatal research.
British National Formulary
This formulary, sponsored jointly by the British Medical Association and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, aims to provide authoritative and practical information on the selection and use of all UK-licensed medicines in a clear, concise and accessible manner. It is semi-continuously updated and published afresh in book form every 6 months, but it can also be accessed on line, and has grown over the years to become one of the world’s most authoritative reference texts. A separate publication, the BNF for Children (or BNFC), was launched in September 2005 jointly with the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and updates of this version appear annually.
Clinical Evidence
Clinical Evidence is an ‘international database of high-quality, rigorously developed systematic overviews assessing the benefits and harms of treatments‘. Relatively few perinatal issues are covered, but the number covered is increasing steadily. Regularly updated full text is available on the web. The text is also currently available in Italian, German, Hungarian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. A summary of each monograph is also published by the BMJ Publishing Group in book form twice a year under the title BMJ Clinical Evidence Handbook.
The Cochrane Library
The Cochrane Collaboration is an international not-for-profit organisation whose aim is to provide up-to-date information about the effects of health care. The library contains the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials. Access to the full text of all the reviews that have something useful to say about drugs mentioned in the main section of this compendium can be assessed directly from this Formulary’s website, while the National Institutes of Health (NIH) website in America provides access to all existing and currently planned neonatal reviews.
Communicable disease centres
Many countries maintain a national communicable disease centre. Two that make a particularly wide range of information publicly available are the Health Protection Agency (HPA) – formerly the Public Health Laboratory Service (PHLS) – in the United Kingdom, and the Communicable Disease Centre (CDC) in the United States.
Contact a Family
When families are told that their child has a rare, possibly inherited, disorder they often feel bereft of good quality advice and information. Contact a Family in the United Kingdom and National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD) in the United States bridge that gap. They can also offer help to those who want to contact other families facing a similar challenge.
Contraception
The website managed by the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare (formerly the Faculty of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care) in the United Kingdom provides authoritative advice on all aspects of contraception and family planning.
Controlled clinical trials
Registration of all interventional trials, using International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number (ISRCTN), is considered to be a scientific, ethical and moral responsibility. It is also an essential requirement if the results are to be published in many journals. Information about trials is now becoming available through a number of sites listed below.
Drug abuse
Drugscope is an independent registered UK charity that undertakes research, and provides authoritative advice, on all aspects of drug abuse and drug addiction.
Drugs and Lactation Database (LactMed)
The National Library of Medicine hosts a peer-reviewed and fully referenced database of drugs to which breastfeeding mothers may be exposed. The site provides data on maternal and infant levels of drugs, possible effects on breastfed infants and on lactation, and alternate drugs to consider.
Drugs in Lactation Advisory Service
This is a joint service provided by the West Midlands and Trent Drug Information Services providing advice about medicines use during lactation.
Drug use during pregnancy
The perinatology website has a useful alphabetical list summarising how most drugs commonly used in pregnancy and breastfeeding are classified by the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It also provides links to a number of similar websites that provide information about drugs, vaccines and diagnostic agents that might be used. See also the two websites giving information on teratogenicity (see below).
First Steps Nutrition Trust
This organisation, a registered charity, provides nutrition information and resources to support women who may become pregnant, pregnant women and parents of children under 5 years. The Trust offers freely available evidence-based, objective information that is free from influence and sponsorship by food manufacturers or retailers.
Genetic disease
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