Why Your Antidepressant Is Making You Depressed
Researchers are unsure if SSRIs lead to risk of birth defects
If you're a woman of child-bearing age, you need to be careful about taking SSRIs as well. It turns out that there may be a risk of birth defects in women taking the antidepressant while they are pregnant. One study found that exposure of Paxil (paroxetine) and Prozac (fluoxetine) in pregnancy increased the risk that an infant would be born with heart or neurological defects. However, the data isn't always consistent either. Another European study looked at over 2.2 million babies born in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, finding that there was actually a decreased risk of heart defects in babies who were exposed to SSRIs during pregnancy. They also found no significant effect of the exposure on the development of neurological defects either.
