About the Author

Gerald Briggs, BPharm, FCCP, is a Pharmacist Clinical Specialist (Obstetrics) for Perinatal Support Services, MemorialCare Center for Women, Miller Children's Hospital, Long Beach Memorial Medical Center. He currently serves as a member of the Best Practice Team for Women's Health for MemorialCare, an organization of five hospitals. His many honors include a 1998 National Hospital Pharmacy Quality Award from Abbott Laboratories for the treatment of hyperemesis gravidarum and the 1999 Clinical Practice Award from the American College of Clinical Pharmacy.

He is a Clinical Professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. As Co-Chair of the Research Committee, Organization of Teratology Information Specialists (OTIS), he oversees international studies evaluating the effects of specific drugs on the embryo and fetus. He also is a consultant to the Pregnatox Research Group at Georgetown University Medical Center. Briggs has authored or co-authored 41 papers in peer-reviewed journals and 12 book chapters, relating to drug therapy in pregnant or breastfeeding women and drug-induced developmental toxicity. He is the senior author of Drugs in Pregnancy and Lactation, 8th edition, 2008, and writes a quarterly update for this book. He also writes a quarterly column on drugs in pregnancy and lactation for the International Medical News Group. He is a peer-reviewer for nine medical journals and serves on the editorial board of one journal. His current practice involves clinical research and drug therapy management of selected conditions for pregnant and postpartum women.

Dr Michael Nageotte is board-certified in both obstetrics and gynecology and maternal-fetal medicine. He currently serves as the Executive Careline Physician of Women's Hospital as well as numerous committees within Long Beach Memorial Medical Center. He is also on the nationally known Prolog Task Force Committee for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Dr. Nageotte has co-authored the book Fetal Heart Rate Monitoring (2003) and is the author of fourteen book chapters and 114 research articles and abstracts. His research interests focus in the areas of antepartum and fetal testing, preterm birth prevention, and medical complications of pregnancy.