How Safe Are Anti-Depression Medication For Pregnant Women?

Those women on anti-depressant medication are most often faced with a major dilemma during pregnancy, with weighing the options of odds versus advantages of carrying on with the treatment still being quite fuzzy to many.

A latest study has revealed that the use of anti-depressants has accelerated at more than twice the rate in the time spans of 1999-2003. A research undertaken in 2003 uncovered that one among eight women consumed anti-depressants at some stage of their pregnancy that comprised of the widely popular range of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor or SSRI anti-depressants such as Paxil, Prozac and Zoloft.

Though these medications were widely deemed safe during pregnancy, but safety issues swiftly surfaced particularly in case of Paxil, that showed cases of women from Sweden and United States that consumed Paxil when pregnant had a greater chance of having babies with inborn heart abnormalities. Following these reports FDA issued an instructive advisory regarding its likely risks in 2005 that was later ruled out by a common board who found the evidence indecisive.

If the risk is factual, then it could be mostly due to a class outcome rather than just Paxil alone. There are few studies that have revealed the correlation between the administration of SSRI and greater probability of miscarriage, lower birth weight and premature delivery, though no conclusive links have been found between the two.

A collaborative report by the American Psychiatric Association and American College of Obstetrics & Gynaecologists substantiates the fact that there has been growing apprehensions regarding the perils of women taking anti-depressant medication and their effect on the babies born has had an overshadowing effect on the need of their use in the first place. However, if depression is not treated, it has a potential to pose greater risk to the baby.

The joint team has recommended the steady decreasing and eventual halting of anti-depressant doses in those women with few, milder versions of depression that lasted for six or more months and are planning for pregnancy.

However, pregnant women with chronic depression, psychotic tendencies, bipolar disorder or suicidal past must not try to halt their anti-depressant medication. Such women many times find no reprieve despite medication, and could find psychotherapy beneficial.

Mentally steady women who wish to continue anti-depressants during pregnancy must do so following a detailed medical consultation with the psychiatrist and their gynaecologist.

The primeval, conservative perception that everything is hunky-dorky during pregnancy and those with a past of depressive tendencies would smooth-sail through the pregnancy phase, easily weaning off their anti-depressants, is a wisdom that has been eventually shattered.

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