Pharmacotherapy of COVID-19: Considerations for Pregnancy and Breastfeeding

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is a chief concern of the international community. As of May 2021, more than 150 million cases and 3.2 million deaths have been recorded. Considering the early struggle in treating COVID-19 patients, the researchers and clinicians have decided to try the previously available drugs according to their mechanisms of action. This article aims to review the potential drugs for COVID-19 patients during pregnancy and breastfeeding and their safety. PubMed and Scopus databases and Google Scholar engine were searched with the proper combination of the free keywords and MeSH Terms of COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Pregnancy, Breastfeeding, Treatment, Pharmacotherapy, Drug Therapy, and Drug Safety. All relevant clinical studies published until the end of 2020 were included in this review. Many antivirals, antibiotics, antiparasitics, and antipyretics have been proposed, but most of them are not registered for COVID-19 or have demonstrated little effect on the disease. Since there is still a long way to find an effective drug for the treatment of COVID-19, prevention is currently the most effective way. Also, prescribing drugs to these two groups of patients should be done according to the safety recommendations.