SSRIs do not pose significant risks for pregnant women

SSRIs do not pose significant risks for pregnant women
A new report published in the New England Journal of Medicine revealed that pregnant women who take a special type of antidepressants called Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) are in no danger of passing birth defects to their newborns.

However the report added that taking SSRIs, which include drugs such as Celexa, Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft, will increase the risk of some type of birth defects, but the risk is very small to be considered dangerous and might occur once in over 2,500 births.

Doubts over the effects of antidepressants surfaced in 2005 when the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned about possible risks of using Paxil during the first trimester of pregnancy.

FDA went on to direct Paxil's manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline, to increase the drug warning from Category C to D, which meant that the drug was known to have posed a risk in pregnant women. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists warned women to avoid using Paxil during pregnancy.

However this posed a new problem since women who used SSRIs relapsed into depression when taken off the drug. Carol Louik, who is an assistant professor of epidemiology at Boston University's Slone Epidemiology Center and the lead author of the study, said that the new report will prove to be a boon for women who need antidepressants during pregnancy.

"It's a fairly reassuring message for women who need antidepressants and are pregnant or who plan on becoming pregnant. We saw no large risks, and the fewer elevated risks that we did see would only lead to very small absolute risks", Louik said.