metformin safe for pregnancy?

[osborn]

Hi, I was surfing for some info for my pregnant daughter, then I came across this dude's blog.

http://pregnant-healthcare.blogspot.com/2006/04/metformin-use-during-first-trimester.html

and my daughter has been diagnosed with diabetes couple of months ago and put on metformin since then, after reading the page above, it made me wondering should my daughter continues taking it.



is what quoted in the blog true?



Thank you in advanced.

anxious dad : (

[JDRF-Team-cb]

Hi anxious dad!
I first wanted to tell you I am not a doctor, just a volunteer.  I have been Type I diabetic for 24 years and have two children.  I did not know what metformin was, so I did some research on the internet and found out it is also called glucophage.  Here is a website you might find helpful: http://otispregnancy.org/pdf/metformin.pdf.  It was very informative.
I also wanted to tell that throughout both my pregnancies, more so my first, people had all kinds of ignorant things to say to me, so my advice is to not listen to everything you here or read, until you have talked to a knowledgeable person, such as an endocrinologist, midwife, obstetrician--you are getting my idea-someone knowledgeable about pregnancy and diabetes.  
If you have questions have your daughter ask her doctor and follow that advice.  
I do think researching about things is smart, but make sure to talk to a physician before making any decisions.  

Also, my pregnancies went pretty well-I had a lot of extra tests and my blood pressure went up after my 5th month with both-but went back to normal.  Lucky daughter you have to be concerned!

[JDRF Volunteer AJ]

Osborn, I simply want to reiterate what cb said about checking your sources.  Also, out of curiosity I went to this web site.  The opening paragraph is pretty interesting see below:

Despite the traditional response that all oral hypoglycemic agents are absolutely contraindicated during pregnancy, evidence that metformin is probably safe during the first trimester of pregnancy and beyond is accumulating.

To me the key word in the paragaph is