A doctor treating drug addicts has warned GPs that some pregnant women may seek treatment for stomach ulcers in the hope that the treatment will cause their pregnancy to be terminated.
Dr Paddy Troy, who is based at Dublin's Dr Steevens's Hospital, said the possibility came to his attention recently during a consultation with a woman attending his clinic.
The woman, who was pregnant, informed him she had sought stomach ulcer drugs from a GP in the hope it would result in the baby she was carrying being aborted. She told him other women told her how to do it and claimed "lots of girls" were using such drugs to terminate pregnancies.
He warned this claim could be exaggerated but he was sure the woman in question knew the drug could result in termination. "It raised my concerns," he said.
Dr Troy, who aired his concerns in a letter to the Irish Medical Times, said he had never heard this before.
However, given that Misoprostol and Cytotec were prostaglandins used for medically indicated therapeutic abortions in other countries, as well as being licensed here to treat ulcers, he felt it wise to warn GPs that women here may look for the drugs under the pretence they have stomach ulcers and in the hope that they will terminate a pregnancy.
"All I was doing was highlighting it so GPs could be aware of it," he said.
He said the GP who prescribed the drugs had asked the woman if she was pregnant and she claimed she wasn't. It is understood the woman was unsuccessful in terminating her pregnancy.