https://www.reddit.com/r/finasteride...g_my_partners/

In 2018 my partner and I spoke about having a baby. At that time I had been on Finasteride for 6 years without issue, and had a fantastic head of hair. I had told a number of my friends to use Finasteride it was so effective!

I went to my Dermatologist and told him we were planning on having a baby and said I was going to stop Finasteride for safety. He told me that Finasteride can affect sperm counts and I should stop taking it 3 months prior to get my sperm count up, then to start taking it again once my wife was 12 weeks pregnant as the baby was formed and there were no risks.

I checked with my General Practitioner and asked her if there were any issues with me taking Finasteride during my partner's pregnancy and she said no.

I read the medication leaflet back to front and read that "females who are pregnant or who may become pregnant should not come in contact with broken or crushed PROPECIA tablets... If a woman who is pregnant with a male baby swallows or comes in contact with the medicine in PROPECIA, the male baby may be born with sex organs that are not normal." This said NOTHING about the risks of unprotected sex if the man was taking it and so I understood it was safe and my doctors were correct.

To be extra safe I also researched medical sources online. I read MotherToBaby, part of the non-profit Organization of Teratology Information Specialists (OTIS) which claims to be "the nation’s leading authority and most trusted source of evidence-based information on the safety of medications and other exposures during pregnancy and while breastfeeding."

This said "Should my partner stop taking finasteride while I am pregnant? No... The amount of the drug found in semen is so small it is not felt to be enough to cause a problem." This flat out "No" from this supposedly trusted organisation made me feel safe. I didn't think at the time about how they only "felt" it was safe and had no idea there were no studies.

I read numerous posts by Dr William Rassman M.D. u/wrassman "There are multiple studies suggesting that men who take finasteride while their wife is pregnant have nothing to worry about as finasteride can't get to her through semen" / "There is no evidence that there is any danger to the unborn child when the man is taking finasteride. The woman should not touch the pill."

I read Pole & Koren (2001) "To date, there are no reports of adverse pregnancy outcomes among women exposed to finasteride. Taking 1 mg of finasteride daily did not have any clinically significant effect on men's semen. Absorption through the skin while handling tablets is extremely unlikely to cause fetal exposure or harm. There is no reason to discontinue the drug. Motherisk is currently following up women who are pregnant or planning pregnancy and whose partners are taking finasteride."

I also read Laborde & Brannigan (2010) "the level present in the ejaculate of patients taking 1 mg appears to be negligible. Thus, there does not appear to be any need to stop 1 mg of finasteride in those patients trying to conceive or in those whose partners are pregnant."

With this repeated information from Doctors and Professors, I felt completely safe. I stopped taking Finasteride 3 months prior to us trying, my partner fell pregnant and in Week 13 I resumed taking Finasteride 1mg/day, up until Week 40 when the baby was born. I kept the tablets away from her and the pregnancy was great with no issues.

When my baby boy was born, he was missing his scrotum. You could see a very tiny patch of where the scrotum outline and rugae were meant to be but there was no sac and the doctors advised his testicles were both undscended.

For the first 2 weeks I never even thought about the link to Finasteride. Then suddenly like a lightning bolt, it hit me.

I started researching and found that Finasteride had only ever been tested in animals, which cannot be reliably extrapolated to humans.

The paedeatric endocrinologist advised scrotum development and testicle descent is reliant on DHT, which is what Finasteride directly suppresses.

Once I told my partner about this connection, it was all over. She moved out the following day and I haven't seen my son since. Fair enough too, I have exposed him to this horrific drug and caused these terrible birth defects. He will require two orchidopexy operations and the creation of a scrotum from skin grafts. He will be at a higher risk of testicular cancer his whole life and have abnormal looking genitals. All because I was a ****wit who didn't stop taking Finasteride when my partner was pregnant.

TLDR:I took Finasteride during my partner's pregnancy and my baby was born without a scrotum and had undescended testicles.

Originally Posted By cavillac⏩

Originally Posted By cavillac⏩

Originally Posted By WellHungOver⏩