Product Liability Attorney Blog

In the past months, an increasing amount of attention has been directed at antidepressants that are prescribed to pregnant women. Cases and studies linking these prescriptions to spontaneous abortions and miscarriages continue to grow, as do cases positing that this class of drugs has a hand in causing birth defects. One such birth defect is the particularly nasty PPHN, a condition in which the infant body cannot properly process oxygen once detached from its mother’s umbilical cord. It often requires surgical intervention, and easily can be fatal to the unfortunate newborn afflicted with it.

The problem is, depression is a serious and pervasive condition. It is not something that can be ignored, and telling someone to “just get over it” or “cheer up” is not a solution. There is increasing evidence that depression is affected by chemical imbalances in the brain. Add to this the fact that a woman's hormonal balance is always thrown into odd states by pregnancy. Pregnant mothers can swing between ecstatic and melancholy moods quite drastically. Pregnancy is exhausting, creating physical and mental strain, especially in a mother worried about the health of her child.

This kind of mental strain can affect the pregnancy. It's well known that infants are affected by the health of the mother, and if depression causes a mother to neglect caring for herself during the pregnancy, how can it be expected that this will not in turn affect the unborn child?

Thus, an outright ban on prescribing antidepressants in the SSRI or SNRI class is out of the question. But so is blanket permission to prescribe them to all pregnant mothers. Rather, the best course is for doctors to remember that each pregnancy is a unique combination of health, history and habits that need to be addressed on an individual basis. Patients also need to educate themselves about alternatives they can pursue so they can avoid an undesirable outcome.

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