In this situation, your physician may prescribe intravenous fluids and medication that will not harm your baby. Although we do not want any woman to suffer unbearable pain, we are extremely cautious about the drugs we prescribe during pregnancy for good reason. Drug trials never include pregnant women intentionally, and researchers do not have a good animal model of pregnancy that would allow them to test the effect of drugs on the developing fetus. As soon as puberty happens, young women have migraines much more frequently than young men. Before then, the occurrence is about the same for girls and boys.
Headaches occur less frequently as people age.
As estrogen levels increase, levels of serotonin, a brain chemical that affects mood and perhaps certain vascular functions, also rise. When estrogen levels are low, during the monthly period, and the off-week for birth control pills or hormone replacement therapy, serotonin levels decrease and headaches occur. Serotonin plays a critically important role in the development of some types of headaches. Indeed, the serotonergic system in headache sufferers may be different from that of normal people. This is perhaps the reason migraine has been successfully treated with tricyclic antidepressants.