They relate the use of antidepressants in pregnancy with congenital malformations

The use of antidepressants Prozac and Paxil during pregnancy is related to a series of congenital defects in the baby, According to a study carried out to thousands of women, which in turn has ruled out that this relationship occurs in other treatments such as Celexa, Lexapro and Zoloft.

It is not the first time that an investigation warns about the consequences of taking antidepressants during pregnancy. As they remember in Scientific American, once a study generated doubts about antidepressants and, in the face of such questions, "in 2005 the United States Food and Drug Administration (DFA) issued Safety alerts on the use of these treatments in pregnancy ".


Birth defects

On this occasion, this work has been prepared by researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the North American country. The research, published in the British Medical Journal, was aimed at "find out if the risk of birth defects affected the entire group of SSRI drugs or only some treatments of that class ", they comment in said scientific publication.

To do this work, the researchers studied almost 28,000 women and asked them if they had taken Celexa, Lexapro, Prozac, Paxil or Zoloft at any time between the month before conception and the third month of pregnancy. Also, it was analyzed which women had given birth to babies with congenital malformations.


In conclusion, the authors of the study found that some popular antidepressants (Celexa, Lexapro or Zoloft) "were not associated with Congenital malformations", while two of the drugs included in the investigation (Prozac and Paxil)" were involved in the risk analyzed, "they say in Scientific American.

"In the women who took these last two medications in the first months of pregnancy, the defects occurred at a frequency between two and 3.5 times higher than in the participants who did not consume them, "they say.

Antidepressants in pregnancy

In particular, this research has found that the defects related to these two antidepressants are different: Prozac has been linked to a congenital defect in which the fetus develops a deformed skull, while Paxil has been linked to two different ones: a malformation in which the baby's intestines grow outside the body and another consisting of the lack of brain and skull (anencephaly)


Also, the analysis found a relationship with the Prozac and the Paxil with heart defects. Of course, the research has only been able to demonstrate the relationship between these medications antidepressants and malformations, but not that the drugs caused such problems.

Finally, the authors of the research have found the findings about Zoloft (which has not been related to such defects) as "reassuring", since this drug is widely used in the United States, something that has been observed in the same sample of the work: 40% of the women surveyed had taken it in the early stages of their pregnancy.

Angela R. Bonachera

Video: Insidermedicine In Depth - May 3, 2010 - SSRI and Pregnancy


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