It is difficult to decide how to treat depression during pregnancy because although it seems that antidepressants taken during the first trimester do not affect the baby, a recent study links the use of certain antidepressants during the last trimester with a slight increase in the risk of babies suffering from a lung disorder.
Although there are fairly safe and proven treatments today, it is obvious that the benefits of taking antidepressants during pregnancy should be weighed and compared with the potential risks of untreated depression.
Depression during untreated or incorrectly treated pregnancy can lead to low birth weight and premature delivery.It could even be linked to other problems for the baby, such as behavioral problems in the future. It also seems that depression in pregnancy is more likely to lead to postpartum depression.
Persistent pulmonary hypertension is a known risk related to taking the antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), to which belong fluoxetine (Prozac), sertraline (Zoloft), venlafaxine (Effexor) and paroxetine (Paxil ) According to the study, taking them at the end of pregnancy would more than double the risk of the newborn suffering from a lung disorder of this type.
Persistent pulmonary hypertension causes the lungs to become resistant after birth, instead of relaxing; They do not expand as they should, and the result is that the baby receives less oxygen than normal. However, there are treatments to treat babies who suffer from it, obtaining a good prognosis.
The study we discussed today in Babies and More also found that the risk of persistent pulmonary hypertension remained low even taking these antidepressants at the end of pregnancy, affecting about 3.5 out of every 1,000 births.
More research on this subject will have to be carried out, since depression is an increasingly common disorder in our society and the data obtained by the study are still limited. It is not clear which moment of pregnancy could be marked as "late" and specialists still do not know how this type of antidepressants could cause persistent pulmonary hypertension.
For that reason, it is interesting that medical specialists know the results of this study and consider it at the time of assess the risks against the benefits of offering these medications to pregnant women suffering from depression, offering a personalized therapeutic guideline.
