Doctors are putting pregnant women and their babies at serious risk by prescribing antidepressants, new research has shown.
Senior doctors have said that there is significant research to indicate that antidepressants such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or SSRIs, can influence complications in pregnancy such as miscarriage, still birth and pre-eclampsia.
Doctors in Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston Massachusetts said that family doctors throughout the world are failing to recognise the damage that antidepressants cause.
SSRIs have also been linked to autism as well as bowel and lung cancer.
According to The Irish Independent, Dr. Adam Urato, a researcher involved in the study said: “Study after study shows increased rates of newborn complications in those babies who were exposed to SSRIs in-utero.
Antidepressants put pregnant women at risk
At least 40 studies had shown a link between taking SSRIs in pregnancy and birth before 37 weeks, which can endanger the child
“It is a fact that these antidepressants have been very lucrative for the pharmaceutical industry and it is a fact that many of the users of these drugs are women of childbearing age.
“It stands to reason to me that the drug makers would rather that the risks of these agents in pregnancy not receive widespread attention as that would be a reason for many women to not take the drugs in the first place or to stop taking them—both of which are not good for sales of the product,” he said.
