An FDA expert roundtable on Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) and pregnancy to facilitate discussions on the safety of the developing child. Held on July 21, 2025 and featuring, amongst others, David Healy, Adam Urato, Joanna Moncrieff, Josef Witt-Doerring and Roger McFillin.
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The most common cause of death in women of child-bearing age in the US is homicide, followed by suicide. If homicidal threat and risk of bodily harm to pregnant people is not a reason for “depression and suicide,” I would be hard-pressed to find anything that contributes more.
Pregnant individuals (usually ciswomen) in the US are in some position of precarity, and are usually in multiple: financial (cost of prenatal, L&D, postpartum care, IVF and fertility treatments are astronomical), employment (usually zero paid parental leave or maximum 12 weeks UNPAID leave), systemic racism in Medicine with poor maternal healthcare provision across the board (worst for indigenous and black Americans), etc. etc.
When the pregnancy and delivery are more challenging, or the newborn is more difficult to handle due to their medical or neurological conditions (eg, SSRI withdrawal symptoms, NICU stays due to low birth weight), the potential for harm to the woman increases further.
All the above conditions of precarity are inherent to the US American healthcare and social system, and when denied, literally kills women and girls.
These are the material conditions that negatively contribute to already massive epidemic of domestic and intimate partner violence which chiefly drives the homicides (if not also the suicides) of women of childbearing age.
Women who are deemed to be depressed (based on an industry-funded depression screener such as PHQ-2 or PHQ9) or express sad feelings to their PCP or OBGYN, are ROUTINELY sent to psychiatric emergency rooms. Straight from their OBGYN follow-up appt which last, on average, only a few minutes.
Additionally, my work with women survivors of intimate partner violence has demonstrated that often the fact of a mother being prescribed SSRIs or other “psych meds” for “depression” (really the sequelae of abuse and DV) is manipulated and used against them by the harming partner and by the courts when engaged in legal battles related to custody and parental rights.
