Increased Risk of Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes in Women Receiving Zolpidem During Pregnancy

This nationwide population-based study was carried out in Taiwan with the aim of comparing the risk of adverse
pregnancy outcomes in women who received zolpidem treatment for insomnia during pregnancy with that in women
who did not. The adverse outcomes identified and assessed were delivery of low-birth-weight (LBW) infants, preterm
deliveries, delivery of small-for-gestational-age (SGA) infants, delivery of infants with congenital anomalies, and cesarean
delivery. The incidences of these were compared between the groups after adjusting for other characteristics of the
mothers and infants. The study used the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Dataset (NHIRD) and birth-certificate
registry. In total, the data from 2,497 mothers who received zolpidem treatment during pregnancy and those from
12,485 randomly selected mothers who did not receive the drug were included in the analysis. The results show that the
adjusted odds ratios (ORs) for adverse pregnancy outcomes—LBW infants, preterm deliveries, SGA infants, and cesarean
delivery—were all higher in mothers who received zolpidem treatment during pregnancy, relative to the randomly
selected controls (1.39 (95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.17–1.64), 1.49 (95% CI = 1.28–1.74), 1.34 (95% CI = 1.20–1.49),
and 1.74 (95% CI = 1.59–1.90), respectively). In conclusion, the risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes was higher in women
who received zolpidem during pregnancy than in those who did not.