Prescription painkillers including codeine and morphine increases the risk of serious birth defects in babies, a study has found.
A group of painkillers known as opioid-based drugs increase the risk of serious birth defects of the baby's brain, spine and heart, researchers found.
They might also lead to a baby being born prematurely if taken by the mother during pregnancy.
Use of these drugs can cause babies to suffer withdrawal symptoms when born, a condition known as neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), a growing problem in U.S. hospitals.
The painkillers, which include codeine, oxycodone, hydrocodone or morphine, are usually prescribed to treat pain that does not respond to standard over-the-counter painkillers like aspirin, ibuprofen and paracetamol.
Opioid-based drugs offer some of the strongest pain relief available, but their use also carries certain side effects, such as a risk of extreme drowsiness and nausea.
They are derived from opium, and some are believed to be more addictive than heroin.
The study, carried our by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), found more than one fourth of privately-insured women were prescribed opioid-based painkillers between 2008 and 2012, according to the study.
One third of women enrolled on the Medicaid programme, the largest source of funding for health-related services for people with low income in the U.S., were prescribed these drugs, it found.
Since half of all pregnancies in the U.S. are unplanned, women may be prescribed opioid-based pain medications before they or their healthcare providers know they are pregnant.
In the UK, prescriptions of both opioid and non-opioid painkillers increased by 2.4 per cent in 2013, according to data from the Health and Social Care information Centre.
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