Pregnancy & Birth Defects

An important new research paper was published this week on the topic of antidepressant use during pregnancy and preterm birth.  The issue is a crucial one as preterm birth (i.e. birth at less than 37 weeks gestational age) is one of the most challenging problems facing the obstetrical community today.  Rates of preterm birth have been increasing over the past two decades.  Babies born early have increased risks of morbidity and mortality.  At the same time, rates of antidepressant use during pregnancy have increased dramatically.

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.

From The Baltimore Sun: Over time, studies have shown that antidepressants during pregnancy are linked with congenital defects as well as increased incidence of depression...

Scientists from the University of Utah say they have discovered a new way of doing mice experiments that more sensitively and quickly reveals negative...

A new study has reinforced earlier warnings that taking SSRI antidepressants late in pregnancy appears to put mothers at a slightly increased risk of having newborns with persistent pulmonary hypertension.

Women in Malaysia exposed to intimate partner violence are twice as likely to experience postnatal depression.

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) came into favor in the wake of thalidomide as a method to evaluate drugs and their risks. They were supposed to...

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...

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.

On Monday April 14th, an important new study from Harrington et al was published in the journal Pediatrics (the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.)  The study was designed to examine prenatal use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and the risk of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) and other developmental delays (DDs).  Nine hundred sixty-six mother child pairs were studied and the researchers found that in boys, the association between maternal SSRI use in the first trimester and autism was very strong (OR 3.22).  The association between third-trimester maternal SSRI use and developmental delay was even stronger, with an odds ratio of 4.98.

“Live, healthy babies are the most common outcome following the use of antipsychotic medication in pregnancy,” conclude Australian researchers in a study that was...

A study of 106,000 pregnant women with a diagnosis of mood or anxiety disorder, by researchers from Harvard, Duke, Michigan State and the university...

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

Research on 966 mother-child pairs from the Childhood Autism Risks from Genetics and the Environment (CHARGE) Study finds that prenatal SSRI exposure was nearly 3...

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

There were some differences between the study, the abstract, the press release and the media coverage about the risks of taking antipsychotics during pregnancy.

Pregnant women taking antidepressant medications, especially during the second trimester, have an increased risk of preeclampsia, a potentially serious or even fatal condition.

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

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

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...

The first of more than 1,000 lawsuits about Zoloft and birth defects has gotten underway.

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...

With at least 59 lawsuits pending over birth defects allegedly caused by Zoloft, Pfizer moves to consolidate litigation near its headquarters in New York. Read...

Continuing to take antidepressants during pregnancy was associated with higher rates of depressive relapses and hospitalizations than discontinuing.

In a prospective cohort study of 466 pregnant women over 10 years, researchers at the California Teratogen Information Service found that women exposed to...