Each year, hundreds of thousands of pregnant women in the US face significant medical illness during their pregnancies. Diabetes and hypertension complicate 40,000+ pregnancies; psychiatric illness complicates an estimated 500,000; cancer and autoimmune diseases are not uncommon, and yet we have surprisingly little data about how to safely and effectively treat these conditions. The pregnant body can substantially change the ways in which drugs are metabolized; and concerns about the safety of taking medication must be balanced against the medical risks -- to woman and fetus alike -- of undertreating significant medical disease.

The Second Wave Initiative, launched in 2009, is a collaborative academic effort to advocate for, and help find, ethically and scientifically responsible solutions for increasing our knowledge base for the treatment of pregnant women who face medical illness.