Treating depression in women who are not pregnant, and men for that matter, is hard enough without adding in the complexity of a growing child in a woman’s womb. Many times it takes several tries on several different medications that have various unpleasant side effects, can drive patients further into depression or even suicidal thoughts, or plain old don’t work and are a mental letdown on top of already shaky moods.

This can really take it’s toll on patients with depression, especially when they have to experiment with different medications that aren’t really all that fun to be on.  Not only that, there are many who say that once you go on antidepressants, it is very hard to come off of them, especially the longer you are on them.

The added twist for pregnant women though, is that they still need to be treated, and antidpressants called SSRI’s which are some of the more effective types of antidepressants, often have side effects on the fetus, most commonly resulting in a birth that is too early (premature).   Obviously, when a baby is born before everything is fully developed and they are ready to come out and face the world, so to speak, this an cause health issues and require that the child’s hospital stay be longer, with more life support for their vital functions if their organs aren’t fully ready yet.

Sometimes the babies are born when they are too low of a weight or have not even developed their internal organs fully yet, and this is of course a major concern when a doctor is having to put a patient on this type of medication and feels they have no choice.  It’s kind of hard to decide which is worse, the depression itself or the side effects the medications will have, but often times treating the patients wins out since depression can have a multitude of implications for the mother and the child.

Studies show that mothers that were put on an SSRI antidepressant type of medication during pregnancy had babies that were born too early and were much more likely to require additional care in the infant care unit after being born.  Two common types of antidepressants that are apparently used in pregnancy women that are considered to be generally safe are Zoloft,a nd the all too famous Prozac.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at 6:29 pm and is filed under Natural Depression & Anxiety Relief. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.