A recent study finds that you are more likely to have a recurrence of depression if women who are pregnant stop taking Paxil, but another recent study suggests that taking certain antidepressants like Paxil may harm your baby. The first study cited by the FDA found that women who stopped their SSRI antidepressants were five times more likely to have a recurrence of depression than women who continued antidepressant treatment while pregnant.
The companies making antidepressants would obviously benefit financially if women did not stop taking antidepressants during pregnancy.
The second study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, suggests that a health condition known as persistent pulmonary hypertension (PPHN) is six times more likely in babies whose mothers took SSRI antidepressants like Paxil after the 20th week of pregnancy compared to babies whose mothers did not take antidepressants.
PPHN is a life-threatening lung condition that can be diagnosed after a baby is born. Babies born with PPHN have high pressure in the blood vessels of their lungs and are not able to get enough oxygen into their bloodstreams.
About one to two babies per 1,000 births in the United States develop PPHN. These babies often need intensive medical care. In contrast, six to 12 cases of PPHN develop per 1,000 births in mothers using antidepressants during pregnancy - a risk of about 1.2 percent, which is approximately six times higher for women taking Paxil during pregnancy than in women not using antidepressants during pregnancy.
The study was supported by a grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, the National Center for Birth Defects Research and Prevention and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.
Source: (Worst Pills)
