Or at least it should be for pregnant women, for those who breastfeed their children and for babies.
Topical use of povidone iodine (Betadine, Topionic, etc.) causes an uncontrolled iodine overload that can cause transient thyroid block in babies
The thyroid needs iodine to synthesize hormones, but if there is an excess of iodine at such early ages, the thyroid inhibits iodine uptake and stops functioning as it should cause hypothyroidism.
The concentration of iodine in iodized salt is 60 micrograms per gram of salt. In povidone iodine it is 10,000 micrograms / ml. The danger is not only the very high concentration of iodine, but also It absorbs a lot and very fast. To give you an idea of the magnitude of the absorption, it has been observed that the iodine (iodine in blood) of the umbilical cord increases by up to 50% in those mothers in whom iodine has been applied just before the expulsion.
This overload of iodine in the mother causes an increase in iodine in breast milk up to 10 times higher, in the days after delivery, than those mothers to whom this antiseptic is not applied.
All this causes the baby to receive much more iodine than he needs and that his thyroid is blocked causing a transient hypothyroidism that may affect the baby's brain development, which causes false positives in the heel test and therefore causes these alterations to be diagnosed and medicated that could well have been avoided.
