The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Study: Psychiatric disorders in pregnancy won’t harm baby
Charity Ferris has grappled with anxiety and depression but, when she became pregnant with her first child, she opted not to stay on her medication, even though doctors told her it wouldn’t affect her pregnancy.
“I felt I could keep my depression and anxiety under control,” said Ferris, 35, of Monroe.
Gradually, her illnesses reasserted themselves, eventually manifesting in severe postpartum depression. “I was crying all the time,” she said. “If I’d stayed on my medication, I might not have emotionally missed the first four months of my son’s life.”
For mothers coping with mental health issues, a study recently published out of Yale University might offer some solace.
The study found a pregnant woman’s psychiatric disorder isn’t a threat to her baby’s health. Although researchers found some risks linked to the medications that treat these illnesses, they were considered minor.
There’s still a fair amount of stigma attached to psychiatric disorders, particularly in pregnant women said the study’s lead author, Kimberly Yonkers, Yale professor of psychiatry, epidemiology and obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences. That can be damaging to women with these conditions.
“Women who are pregnant don’t want to be sick,” Yonkers said. “And we have to stop sending the message that, because you have an illness, you’re harming your baby.”
The new study results should help to change that messaging, she said. The Yale team followed 2,654 women at 137 clinical practices in Connecticut and Massachusetts to assess the impact of psychiatric disorders — including depression, panic disorder and anxiety — on pregnancy outcomesF.oTtohliae/yCownteribrueteodrpighoi-to
were less than 17 weeks into their pregnancy, then re-assessed at 28 weeks of pregnancy and eight weeks postpartum.
The researchers didn’t find maternal or neonatal outcomes were worse in the women who had panic disorder or generalized anxiety disorder compared to women without these conditions.
They found the mother’s use of benzodiazepine, commonly prescribed for panic and general anxiety disorder, led to slightly lower birthweight, and their babies needed additional ventilator support in 61 of 1,000 cases.
Using a common class of antidepressants known as serotonin reuptake inhibitors while pregnant shortened gestation by 1.8 days.
Antidepressants were linked to hypertensive diseases in 53 out of 1,000 pregnancies and led to more cases of minor respiratory interventions after birth.
The study should be reassuring to mothers, said Dr. Robert Stiller, director of maternal fetal medicine at Bridgeport Hospital. “There is a stigma to being labeled with a psychiatric disorder,” he said.
Stiller said, in his department, doctors are careful to assess any mental health issues in pregnant patients and make sure they’re getting the help they need.
Ferris said she found the study interesting. After her experience with her son, she went back on her medication directly after her second pregnancy. However, she said, if she had known about the study and the results when she was pregnant with her son, she still probably would have made the same choice.
“I probably still would have stayed off,” Ferris said, saying it seemed like the right choice to her at the time.
Yonkers, however, hopes the result helps change the way women with psychiatric illnesses regard their disease. “I think this is good news for moms,” Yonkers said. “I think when you look at (taking the medication) in the context of risk, it’s a relatively mild risk.”