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THE BABY BEAT – September 1, 2010
D. Gary Benfield, M.D.
Is Sominex safe to take when pregnant?
DEAR DR. BENFIELD: I’ve been taking Sominex to help me sleep at night, and it
works great. My problem is I’m pregnant. Can you tell me if it’s safe to keep taking the
medicine? L.O.
DEAR L.O.: As you know, Sominex is a sleep aid you can buy without a prescription.
It helps you sleep because its active ingredient, diphenhydramine, is an antihistamine that
makes you drowsy. So Glaxo Smith Kline, the drug company that makes Sominex, took
advantage of this side effect and sells the drug to help you sleep. The pregnancy risk
category assigned to diphenhydramine is B, meaning Sominex is safe to take during
pregnancy. Now, here’s the rest of the story.
Diphenhydramine is also the active ingredient in Benadryl, the allergy medicine that
treats your runny nose and itchy, watery eyes when you come down with hay fever or
seasonal allergies. Diphenhydramine is also the active ingredient in Benadryl that prevents
and treats motion sickness. Whether it is called Sominex and used to help you sleep, or
called Benadryl and used to relieve the symptoms of hay fever or to treat motion sickness
on your next cruise, it’s safe to take diphenhydramine in either form during pregnancy.
Diphenhydramine is also the active ingredient in 25 other brand name products that are
sold over-the-counter for the purposes mentioned above. Names like Nervine, Unisom,
Compoz Nighttime Sleep Aid, Diphen, and Hydramine come to mind. It’s also sold under
the in-house brands at Walmart, CVS, Rite Aid, Target, Walgreens and other retail outlets.
And since the only active ingredient in all those products is diphenhydramine, it’s safe to
use those products during pregnancy. So if you want to switch to a cheaper, in-house
THE BABY BEAT – September 1, 2010
Is Sominex safe to take when pregnant?
brand of diphenhydramine during pregnancy, it won’t harm your unborn baby. Of course,
you should always touch base with your healthcare provider before taking any drug,
prescription or over-the-counter, or herbal remedy.
A further thought: Now, suppose you do go on a cruise, and you wolf down a hefty
dose of Benadryl to prevent motion sickness just before you board the boat. And suppose
you take your regular dose of Sominex a half hour before going to bed. And suppose it’s
hay fever season, and you are taking Benadryl-D Allergy and Sinus for your runny nose
and sneezing. Do you see where I’m going with this? All of a sudden you may find
yourself overdosed on diphenhydramine and unable to wake up. The lesson? Never take
more than one source of an active ingredient at a time. This means knowing where to look
on each drug label for the active ingredients (the first line under “Active Ingredients”),
jotting down the active ingredients, and even though you may not understand what the
words mean, noticing if the same ingredients are listed more than once on all the products.
This is especially important when it comes to acetaminophen, the active ingredient in
Tylenol. Even some doctors and nurses will forget that drugs like Percocet and Vicodin
contain substantial amounts of acetaminophen, enough to push a person into liver failure if
he or she is also taking another source of acetaminophen like Tylenol Cold & Flu,
Maximum Strength Midol PMS, or Excedrin PM.
© 2010 Gary Benfield
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