from the Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/article_print/0„SB111635212022535944-INjfoNplaV4nZyrbHuHaq2Am4,00.html
Antidepressants Are Linked
To Complications in Newborns
ASSOCIATED PRESS
May 18, 2005; Page D7
CHICAGO — Women who take Prozac or certain other antidepressants late in pregnancy raise the risk of their babies suffering jitteriness, irritability and serious respiratory problems during their first couple of weeks, researchers said.
Babies born to women taking antidepressants in the last three months of pregnancy were three times as likely to develop drug-related symptoms as those born to women who didn’t use the drugs or took them only in early pregnancy, according to a University of Pittsburgh study that pooled previous research.
The study is published in today’s Journal of the American Medical Association.
Most of the symptoms are mild and usually disappear after about two weeks, but some require intensive-care hospitalization, the researchers said.
The drugs involved include Prozac, Paxil and other antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, and also serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, such as Effexor.
At least 80,000 U.S. women yearly take the drugs during pregnancy, the researchers estimated.
Serious respiratory problems develop in perhaps one out of 100 infants born to these women, said Eydie Moses-Kolko, a psychiatrist who led the study.
The Food and Drug Administration and drug makers recently agreed to labeling changes on these drugs to include information about the symptoms, which some doctors call neonatal behavioral syndrome or withdrawal syndrome.
Dr. Moses-Kolko said little research has been done on whether the drugs have lasting effects in children, although one study found that affected newborns were developmentally normal at eight months.
“I don’t think this is cause for alarm,” but patients and doctors should be aware of the risk, she said. Women should talk to their doctors about reducing use of the drugs late in pregnancy but should be aware that the risks of depression might outweigh the short-term problems the drugs might cause in newborns, she said.