According to a new study that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, women’s use of antidepressants like Paxil during pregnancy doesn’t increase the baby’s risk of death.
For the study, the researchers analyzed data of over 1.6 million births in an effort to see if infant death was linked to antidepressant use by pregnant mothers in the first year. The researchers claim that the study revealed that after they made some slight adjustments to account for the mother’s other conditions, including depression and any previous mental or psychiatric conditions, there was no significant link between the mother’s antidepressant use and infant death in the baby’s first year of life.
“Maternal depression is associated with poorer pregnancy outcomes, including increased risk of pre-term delivery, which in turn may cause neonatal morbidity and mortality,” wrote the authors. “The increased rates of stillbirth and post-neonatal mortality among infants exposed to an SSRI during pregnancy were explained by the severity of the underlying maternal psychiatric disease and unfavorable distribution of maternal characteristics such as cigarette smoking and advanced maternal age.”
The information produced in this study seems to directly contradict the results of numerous previous studies that have linked the use of antidepressants like Paxil and infant mortality. Those other studies also show that antidepressants are linked to birth defects in babies whose mothers take the pills during pregnancy as well. Some of those birth include PPHN, spina bifida, neural tube defects, oral clefts and heart, lung and brain defects as well. Drugs like Paxil, which are used to treat depression, have also been known to cause patients themselves to suffer from violent and suicidal thoughts and behavior. Since many doctors have even gone so far as to state that drugs like Paxil don’t work in alleviating the symptoms of depression, it just doesn’t make sense to even take the risk — regardless of what studies like this suggest.
