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 psychological medicine at Cardiff University. Healy, who prescribes SSRIs selectively, says there’s no good data suggesting untreated depression is more dangerous to mother and child than SSRIs.

And the damage done by SSRI use, he says, may actually be worse than the numbers suggest. Studies have also linked SSRI use in pregnancy to higher “voluntary terminations,” or abortions, he says, prompted in part by birth defects detected in prenatal scanning. Clinical depression in pregnancy is a serious concern, Healy told Maclean’s. “But effective treatments exist that are less risky for the fetus.” In his 2012 book Pharmageddon, Healy identifies rising SSRI use in pregnancy as the most ominous portend of the grip Big Pharma now exerts over medicine…

Read Maclean’s article: There’s a pill for that