Linkage between the Danish National Health Service Prescription Database, the Danish Fetal Medicine Database, and other Danish registries as a tool for the study of drug safety in pregnancy

A linked population-based database is being created in Denmark for research on drug safety during pregnancy. It combines information from the Danish National Health Service Prescription Database (with information on all prescriptions reimbursed in Denmark since 2004), the Danish Fetal Medicine Database, the Danish National Registry of Patients, and the Medical Birth Registry. The new linked database will provide validated information on malformations diagnosed both prenatally and postnatally. The cohort from 2008 to 2014 will comprise 589,000 pregnancies with information on 424,000 pregnancies resulting in live-born children, ∼420,000 pregnancies undergoing prenatal ultrasound scans, 65,000 miscarriages, and 92,000 terminations. It will be updated yearly with information on ∼80,000 pregnancies. The cohort will enable identification of drug exposures associated with severe malformations, not only based on malformations diagnosed after birth but also including those having led to termination of pregnancy or miscarriage. Such combined data will provide a unique source of information for research on the safety of medications used during pregnancy.