Adverse Effects

I remember looking out of my living room window, drawing on my connection to all the women in the world who had felt this energy before, all that were in that moment, and all that would in time to come. This energy, this incredible power, was like a wave that I was riding for a brief window of my life, and sharing with my baby to move us through time into a new type of union. To me, this wasn’t anything to resist, to be afraid of, or to suppress. All I had to do was be there to witness, and keep my mind from getting in the way.

A study of the Swedish medical birth registry, conducted by researchers from Sweden, the U.K., and the U.S.A., found a 3.3X greater risk of...

What goes wrong for the 10-15% of women who feel like hiding under the covers instead of gazing blissfully into their newborns peaceful face? Is it expectations unmet? Is it hormones? Is it the brain? Having spent several years treating these women, I believe that what we are calling postpartum depression and anxiety is in fact postpartum immune dysfunction, and its attendant inflammation.

The Cochrane Library reports that "many older people with Alzheimer's dementia and NPS (neuropsychiatric symptoms) can be withdrawn from chronic antipsychotic medication without detrimental effects...

When patients come to me with complaints of low libido, low or flat mood, weight gain, hair loss, and cloudy thinking, one of my first questions is “Are you on the Pill?”. When they come complaining about premenstrual irritability, insomnia, tearfulness, bloating, and breast tenderness, requesting that I sanction beginning a course of oral contraceptives and perhaps an antidepressant, the one-size-fits-all-cure-all of psychiatrists and gynecologists nationwide, my first comment is “There’s a better way.”

Last year (2012) the British Medical Journal (BMJ) published a study from 5 Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden) based on more...

An Austrian study of the baseline prevalence of metabolic abnormalities and changes following treatment with five commonly-used antipsychotic drugs (haloperidol, amisulpride, olanzapine, quetiapine or...

I have almost four months to go until I am done with the little pills. After that, I’m told it will take two to nine months until my brain will regulate, until I will be able to eat normally, to stand without shivering, to hold my children without fear of falling. I will make it. But I am here to state the obvious: Benzodiazepines are dangerous. We need more research. We need to know that an invisible epidemic is in our midst and there is much that can be done.

Neuroleptic Drugs and Violence by Catherine Clarke SRN, SCM, MSSCH, MBChA. and Jan Evans MCSP. Grad Dip Phys.

Research from India indicates that "schizophrenia in the absence of antipsychotic drug treatment is not a factor contributing to high prevalence of metabolic abnormalities." Abstract...

Nineteen defective drug product liability cases against Prizer have been filed in West Virginia state court by mothers alleging that their children suffered from...

In addition to the increased risk of respiratory and heart troubles known to accompany SSRI use during pregnancy, SSRIs have been linked to an...

Danish research found a significantly increased risk of congenital heart defects in both the 4,183 pregnancies exposed to SSRIs throughout the first trimester and the...

Swedish researchers find, in a study of all women giving birth in Sweden from July 1, 2005 through December 31, 2009 that those taking...

Researchers from Belgium and the Netherlands, publishing online June 20 in Neuroscience, found that prenatal fluoxetine (Prozac) differentially affected the development of glucocorticoid receptors...

A study of 228,876 pregnancies, published in the July issue of the American journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, finds that maternal antidepressant use is...

Maternal antenatal depression is highly correlated with a history of the mother having been mistreated in childhood, and these two facts significantly increase the...

The Public Library of Science calls for "case studies that can help broaden our understanding of global mental health in 'real-life' contexts." The series...

In one of the first, and the largest, studies of relationships between premature births and severe psychiatric disorders, researchers from Sweden and England examined...

A prospective study of 2,793 pregnant women by researchers from Yale, Tufts, and Ohio State University finds that antidepressant treatment doubles the risk of...

In a study of 90 new mothers in Nova Scotia, five hours per day of skin-to-skin contact (SSC) reduced mothers' depression scores in their...

On Thursday, May 31, 2001, a woman whose name is known only to GlaxoSmithKline emailed the company:   "My name is... I was diagnosed with panic...

In a study of 69,448 pregnant women with depression, researchers from the Harvard school of public health found that use of SSRI (selective serotonin...

"Objective  To systematically evaluate whether prenatal exposure to antidepressant medications is associated with increased risk of autism spectrum disorder ... Conclusion  Although the number of children exposed...

Odysseus was in his 70s. Coming up to the 50th anniversary of a very happy marriage. He had formerly been a respected professional, a...