Risk to baby from anti-depressants for mums-to-be

WOMEN who take two of the most common anti-depressants during pregnancy are more likely to have a baby with a birth defect, scientists have warned.

Prozac and a rival medication known as Paxil or Seroxat increased the risk of some birth defects up to three and a half times.

Problems included heart and brain defects and irregular skull shape.

Experts insisted the risk was still tiny – heart defects among babies whose mothers took Paxil or Seroxat increased from ten per 10,000 births to 24. But the findings, published in the British Medical Journal, come after the NhS said the use of anti-depressants overall had soared from 29million prescriptions in 2004 to 57million last year.

Prozac, Paxil and Seroxat accounted for eight million prescriptions in 2014.

Researchers focused on a type of antidepressant called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI). The study by the National centre on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities in Atlanta, Georgia, looked at 28,000 pregnancies from 1997 to 2009.

The team examined the effect of celexa and cipramil (the brand names for the medication citalopram), Lexapro (escitalopram), Prozac (fluoxetine), Seroxat and Paxil (paroxetine), and Zoloft (sertraline).

The most commonly used SSRIs in England – celexa, cipramil and Zoloft – were not associated with increased birth defects. But Prozac was linked to heart wall defects and irregular skull shape, while Seroxat and Paxil left some babies with brain and skull formation problems and abdominal wall defects.

The chance of brain and skull problems associated with Seroxat and Paxil increased from two per 10,000 to seven, and for heart defects from 10 per 10,000 to 24.

however, Dr Michael Bloomfield, of University college London, said: ‘Depression can be a life-threatening illness. Any decision around treatment in pregnancy needs to weigh up the potential small risks against the benefits.’