Editorial Note: This post by Harriet Rosenberg aims at getting some debate going about medication and birth defects. We will run a survey early next week on this issue Right-to-Know (R2K). A recent post on RxISK, The dark is for mushrooms not for women features responses on Mumsnet to the issue of prescribing SSRIs during pregnancy. Johanna Ryan comments at the end of the … [Read more...] about Preventing Precaution
Pregnancy
The Dark is for Mushrooms, Not for Women
The pre-pregnancy puzzle This post contains a comment by Neil Gorman on Humira in Ulcerative Colitis backed up by material criticising a BBC Panorama program on antidepressants in pregnancy retrieved from the link to Mumsnet mentioned by Neil. This link illustrates beautifully why Pharma has such an easy ride. There is a mythic element here. Where men are accused of seeing … [Read more...] about The Dark is for Mushrooms, Not for Women
Maclean’s magazine: There’s a pill for that
A B.C. class-action suit against the makers of Paxil is putting the spotlight on a controversial issue: the growing use of antidepressants during pregnancy. ...Yet a rising chorus of researchers is questioning Motherisk’s stance on SSRI use in pregnancy. One of the most vocal is psychiatrist and psychopharmacologist David Healy, director of the North Wales department of … [Read more...] about Maclean’s magazine: There’s a pill for that
Autism Awareness Day: Antidepressants in Pregnancy
Editorial Note: This post is by Adam Urato MD, the Chairman of Obstetrics and Gynecology at MetroWest Medical Center in Framingham, Massachusetts, as well as a Maternal-Fetal Medicine specialist at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts. He cares for pregnant women on a daily basis. Autism rates are on the rise, with the latest report from the US Centers for Disease … [Read more...] about Autism Awareness Day: Antidepressants in Pregnancy
Facts About FACS (Fetal Anti-Convulsant Syndrome)
Janet's story I was diagnosed with epilepsy at the age of 14. After trying different drugs my seizures were controlled by a combination of Phenytoin (Epanutin) and Sodium Valproate (Epilim). What they didn’t tell me was that Sodium Valproate carried the highest incidence of birth defects to the unborn baby. In my ignorance I continued to take the drugs in all of my pregnancies … [Read more...] about Facts About FACS (Fetal Anti-Convulsant Syndrome)