Not only is using an asthma inhaler safe during pregnancy, it's recommended to keep your asthma under control. Although most women with asthma have perfectly normal, healthy babies, uncontrolled asthma can result in too little oxygen getting to the baby, increasing the risk for low birth weight and other problems. Your healthcare provider will know which ones are appropriate for your particular situation. In general, physicians recommend using the minimum amount of medication necessary to maintain control of asthma symptoms during pregnancy. They also recommend using the drugs that have been around the longest because they know more about their safety.
Healthcare providers prefer inhalers over pills because less medicine reaches the baby.
They do not generally provide immediate relief of symptoms. Three anti-inflammatories are commonly used to treat asthma. Little information is available on this drug in human pregnancies. Corticosteroids have been shown to increase the risk for cleft palate in animals such as rats and mice. One human study had similar findings.