Pregnancy & Birth Defects

The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA is one of the premier centers for brain research in the country, and so when 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...

Accumulating evidence points to serious risks associated with antidepressant use during pregnancy, yet data suggests that prescriptions continue to rise in the US. "Given...

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

Ed Silverman reports that only 80 prescriptions for Addyi, or Flibanserin, were filled in the drugs’ first two weeks on the market. Article →

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

"A Pfizer Inc. report shows a scientist warned executives last year about a potential link between the anti-depressant drug Zoloft and birth defects."

Bob-- Here is a letter that I wrote several months ago in response to an early reader of my blog here. She expressed concern about...

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...

“A University of Texas Southwestern study will see if giving unborn babies with Down syndrome Prozac in the womb will help improve brain functioning"

What depressed pregnant women need is compassionate care and accurate information that recognizes the potentially severe consequences of depression while making it clear that chemicals going into a baby throughout its development will likely have consequences for that development.

A detailed meta-analysis of the published research on women taking antidepressants during pregnancy finds that the rate of preterm birth is nearly doubled in the third...

Researchers experimenting on mice found that exposure to fluoxetine (Prozac) in utero resulted in behaviors considered in animal studies to be analogous to autism in humans.

Following a lawsuit brought by Andrew Thibault of Parents Against Pharmaceutical Abuse (PAPA), the FDA has produced adverse event and severe adverse event reports...

The US FDA has launched a campaign to dispel the "myth" that women shouldn't be taking any medications while pregnant.

Depressed pregnant women need good care.  They should not be made to feel guilty for the choices they make concerning their depression or lectured to by those who don’t understand the area or lack compassion for them.  In that sense, Andrew Solomon does the public a service by turning his attention and writing talents to the topic of depression and pregnancy this week in the New York Times.  However, a crucial part of providing good care to depressed pregnant women is to give them accurate information on the topic.  In this sense, Andrew Solomon falls short.

"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...

Nora Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), authored an editorial for BMJ this month warning that the opioid abuse epidemic could have dangerous consequences for pregnant women. While the effects of opioid exposure on the developing brain are yet unknown, research suggests that infants may suffer from withdrawal syndrome, nervous system defects, and impaired attachment with the mother.

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

A scientific review says we need to know much more about the risks of nursing mothers taking SSRIs.

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.

For the New York Times’ Well blog, Nicholas Bakalar reports on a new study, in JAMA Pediatrics, that found that using acetaminophen (Tylenol) during...

Sociologist Garry Gray examines the institutional pressures and systemic failings that allow unsafe drugs to hit the market. “Research integrity and the institutional structures that support scientific research are key to understanding and eliminating scientific compromises. Without this understanding, we can’t truly progress beyond the 'Grünenthal science' that underscored the thalidomide tragedy.”

Bloomberg reports that the FDA asked Pfizer in August “to modify safety warnings for its antidepressant Zoloft (sertraline) and acknowledge for the first time that some studies linked the mood-altering medication to heart defects in newborns.”

We know that all drugs have side effects. That’s just part of the deal right? But is it really possible that an antidepressant can cause a sane person to act like a cold-blooded criminal?