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PurposeTo describe the prescription of antibiotics before, during and after pregnancy, and the trends over a 16-year period in the Netherlands, and to determine whether they were prescribed according to national guidelines. MethodsThe IADB (http://iadb.nl) contains prescriptions dispensed by community pharmacies in the Netherlands. We extracted information on 18873 pregnancies for 14969 women between 1994 and 2009, focusing on antibiotics dispensed in the four trimesters before conception to two trimesters after birth (nine trimesters in total). We calculated trends in prescription rates during pregnancy and over time, and also compared the prescription of antibiotics in the Netherlands with safety category based on the Australian Drug Evaluation Committee. ResultsDuring pregnancy 20.8% of the women were prescribed at least one antibiotic. The beta-lactam antibacterials/penicillins' group and the specific antibiotic amoxicillin were most commonly prescribed in the nine trimesters covered. The prescription rate of the other antibacterials' group during pregnancy increased over the years, in contrast to that of the sulphonamides/trimethoprim' group, which decreased. In total, 2.0% of pregnancies were exposed to a potentially harmful' antibiotic and 0.8% to a harmful' antibiotic. Compared with the period before conception, safe' antibiotics were prescribed more often during pregnancy than the other groups. ConclusionsOne in five women was prescribed at least one antibiotic during pregnancy in the Netherlands, which is comparable with rates in other European countries. Our results suggest that antibiotics appear to be prescribed to pregnant women generally in accordance with national recommendations. Copyright (c) 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Background: There is widespread concern about possible increases in antibiotic use but comparative data from different European countries on levels of use are lacking. Objectives: This study was designed to measure and understand the variation in antibiotic utilization across seven European health care databases from Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom between 2004 and 2009. Methods: Descriptive analyses were stratified by gender, age and type of antibiotic. Separate analyses were performed to measure the most common underlying indications leading to the prescription of an antibiotic agent. Results: The average yearly period prevalence of antibiotic use between 2004 and 2009 varied from 15 (Netherlands) to 30 (Spain) users per 100 patients, whilst the overall number of prescriptions for antibiotic agents increased. A higher prevalence of antibiotic use by females, the very young (0-9 years) and old (80+) was consistently observed in all databases. The lowest point prevalence was recorded in June and September and ranged from 0.51 (Netherlands) to 1.47 (UK) per 100 patients per day. Twelve (Netherlands) to 49 (Spain) percent of all users were diagnosed with a respiratory tract infection and the most common type of antibiotic drug class in every database were penicillins. Conclusions: Using identical methodology in all 7 EU databases to assess antibiotic use allowed us to compare drug usage patterns across Europe. Our results contribute quantitatively to the overall understanding of the pattern of use of antibiotic agents in different EU countries.