Prescribing Guidelines

Prescribing in Breastfeeding

• Clonidine has been added to the list of medicines considered “safe” when breastfeeding full-term healthy babies if it was taken during pregnancy or patient is under specialist care.
• Maximum dose of prednisone considered “safe” for short courses was increased to 40 mg.
• Codeine use during breastfeeding is controversial. Wording added acknowledging this.

Prescribing in the Larger Adult

• New title (previously Prescribing in the Obese Adult) as not all large people are obese.
• Figure to illustrate the proportion of fat-free mass in normal and larger weight patients added.
• Examples of medicines that require a larger dose in a larger patient; and how to dose and monitor added.
• Table to summarise weight terms, definitions and equations added.