Have You Had Any Patients on Finasteride That Had Kids Who Later Presented Health Issues?
Have any of your patients come back to you to report on children they had who were born with or who later presented with health issues that your patients thought might be linked to their use of finasteride? I know there’d be no way to show causality, I’m just wondering if it’s happened.
Personally I don’t care as much about infertility as I do about having a child who has health issues as a result of my finasteride usage. I’m having conscience-pangs just thinking about it. Could finasteride exert some kind of deleterious effect on the genetic content inside sperm whereby the sperm _does_ manage to fertilize the egg but where genetic abnormalities are passed on to the child? As usual, I suppose the answer is that nobody knows for sure.
No. At least, no one ever came to me who was on the medication asking about it. Propecia / finasteride taken by men as directed is not a pregnancy / health risk. When taken by women, it can potentially cause birth abnormalities possibly due to hormonal changes it causes during fetal development.
I know there are plenty of men that have had kids after taking the medication, so perhaps our readers will leave comments about their experiences.
I have a 7 year old beautiful daughter and have been taking finasteride since 1999. She has had no health problems other than she had some jaundice as an infant. She has a great head of hair. Hehe
If she did have health problems due to my propecia use, I would probably never forgive myself.
Extensive preclinical (animal) toxicology and reproductive studies done by the manufacturer are consistent with teratogenicity (birth defects) when taken by females, no expected teratogenicity when taken by males. Hence, no warning for males in the product label. While there are exceptions, in general highly teratogenic drugs, such as Accutane, do not produce birth defects when taken by males.
So is it okay to conceive while taking the drug?
Yes, it is OK to impregnate someone (“conceive”) while taking the drug if you are a male without risk of birth defects (related to the drug). If you are a female of childbearing potential, it is not OK.
Chris, stop taking it.
It’s comforting to hear that there haven’t been reported birth defects from your male patients taking propecia or finasteride. With so much propaganda on the internet about finasteride potentially causing birth defects, I think a simple solution would be to report 1000 men on finasteride bearing children with or without birth defects and compare them with another 1000 men never on finasteride to see if there is much of a difference. I assume because there doesn’t appear to be numerous reports of birth defects linking to finasteride in men, that birth defects caused by finasteride is rare or unassociated?