Pregnant Women Who Take Antidepressants Pose Minimal Risk to Babies, New Research Suggests

A new study has shown that taking antidepressants while pregnant may not be very harmful at all.

The study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association has found that mothers who take selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), found in antidepressants, do not really cause a significant risk for persistent pulmonary hypertension (PPHN) in their unborn babies.

The researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School have discovered that there is only minimal risk based on the results of their study.

For the study, researchers investigated the effects of PPHN—a lung and heart condition that occur in infants—among mothers who took SSRIs during their pregnancy. They gathered the data from 3.8 million pregnant women who enrolled in Medicaid, according to Time Magazine.

They found that there were 7,630 babies not exposed to antidepressants that had PPHN. There were 322 infants exposed to SSRIs and 78 infants exposed to non-SSRIs. Additionally, while there was an increased risk of PPHN with SSRI use during late pregnancy, the risk was significantly low.

"When making a decision whether to continue treatment with antidepressants during pregnancy, patients need to weigh all the potential risks with the benefits in terms of improved maternal health and well-being," according to study author Krista F. Huybrechts, of Brigham and Women's Hospital.

"In the past, an important consideration in this treatment decision has been the potentially large increase in the risk of PPHN, which is a severe and life-threatening condition," Huybrechts added.

In 2006, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a public health advisory about the risk of babies getting pulmonary hypertension from SSRIs found in common antidepressants like Prozac and Paxil, Tech Times has learned. 

Depressed women at the time were handed a difficult ultimatum: put their unborn fetus at risk by continuing their medication or get rid of the drugs and possibly sabotage their own mental health.

Because of the new study by Brigham scientists, women with depression may continue taking their medicine.

"The risk increase of taking antidepressants late in pregnancy, if present, is much more modest than previous studies have found," Huybrechts said, according to CBS News."So for women with severe debilitating depression that is not responsive to other non-pharmacological treatments, this should be reassuring information."

For Dr. Katherine Economy, a specialist at Brigham who is not involved in the study, she finds the news reassuring.

"They take them because they have a disease that impacts their daily life," Economy noted. "And for many women, they cannot get through their daily activities, getting out of bed, taking a shower, and preparing food for themselves. So for many of these women, these medications are life-saving and life-altering."