About the site
The Neonatal Formulary (NNF5) provides readers with a comprehensive pharmacopoeia of drug use, not just in the neonatal period, but also during pregnancy and the first year of life.
New editions of the book appear approximately once every three years, but this website provides a means by which all new and revised entries can be posted as soon as they are issued. It also provides access to longer commentaries on fifty of the more important monographs and to a number of archive monographs
NNF5 answers the urgent need for a compact, up-to-date, referenced text on the prescribing of drugs, and their safe and accurate nursing administration to women and their babies, before, during and after birth. Drawing on an international panel of advisors, it summaries the currently available information on all the drugs commonly used in the neonatal period, even where usage lacks any licensed endorsement from the manufacturers – advice that is excluded, as a matter of policy, from most other Formularies.
While the book's main focus is on the baby, many drugs that are given to women during pregnancy are given with the baby's welfare as much as the mother's welfare in mind. To exclude a drug simply because it is mostly given before rather than after birth would be create an entirely artificial divide, so both receive attention in this compendium. Only limited information is, however, provided when the indications for use in pregnancy are essentially the same as they are at any other time in adult life in order to conserve space, since this information is readily available in many other texts.
NNF5 provides information on placental transfer, teratogenicity, neonatal use, drug interactions, pharmacodynamics, adverse effects, toxicity and cost (UK Prices). It also documents the extent to which each drug appears in human milk (and the extent to which this matters). Special attention has been paid to the rapid changes that occur in the renal and hepatic handling of some drugs in the first twelve months of life, and to the impact of prematurity and of severe illness on drug metabolism and drug elimination.
Fetal treatment is covered, as is the use of 'orphan' drugs of known neonatal value. The consequences of legitimate maternal self-medication, and of illicit drug use, also receive attention. Full page monographs on 229 drugs are supplemented by information on a further 141 drugs, or groups of drugs, that are frequently taken by mothers during pregnancy and lactation.
NNF5
- Is an invaluable reference text for all hospital maternity departments
- uses internationally agreed drug names throughout, but gives their US equivalents as well
- provides a list of recently published key papers for each drug
- identifies and provides electronic access to all relevant systematic Cochrane reviews
- offers guidance on drug storage, safe drug administration, the care and use of intravascular lines, and the recognition, management and reporting of adverse reactions.
Never knowingly out of date!
All who use NNF5 can use this free website to keep themselves up to date with developments in drug use.
