In reality, you cannot separate the need for the baby to be healthy and to survive from the mother’s mental state. How many mothers honestly do not worry that something could go wrong with their babies or do not feel responsible for protecting their children? How many women who lost children can go on day by day not feeling anything about that loss? Which antidepressant are you supposed to take to help with depression if you’re dealing with loss after your baby dies from an antidepressant?
Unlike Vogue Magazine or TIME, for some reason ABC has decided to promote more misinformation that will no doubt prove deadly for far too many babies, and possibly mothers too. Read on to find out more…
As I wrote in those articles, I had sent numerous emails to the producer with various studies and analyses including not only the conflicts of interest (the conflicts document was so extensive that it took up about 20 pages or so in Word and I didn’t even look up all the names) among the researchers either writing or cited in the report, but also a comparison of the difference between the ABC article they published, and the actual report issued by the ACOG and APA.
I don’t expect that I’ll be hearing much back from them, but the reason I am writing this is not because I really wanted to be on TV (far from it) but because it just makes me horrified that the media can take something that says there is evidence of harm to babies (to quote the ACOG release, “[T]he use of antidepressant medications during pregnancy have been associated with negative consequences for the newborn…some studies have linked fetal malformations, cardiac defects, pulmonary hypertension, and reduced birth weight to antidepressant use during pregnancy.”) and twist it around by quoting “experts” with fancy titles who are willing to say that “the jury is still out” on whether antidepressants can hurt babies. The proposition is that it’s the depression that causes the birth defects, not the drugs.
The ACOG report clearly says that there is evidence of harm – but unfortunately when you watch the videos put out or read the articles on the ABCnews.com website you won’t know that unless you look further.
Just think about cases in which mothers who lose babies to antidepressants or have babies with severe birth defects linked to antidepressants go on to have more children off of antidepressants, without further problems in the babies. Julie Edgington is one example (out of 5 children, only one baby had problems and it was the one exposed to Paxil, Manie, her 4th), Kelly S., who lost her baby to a Paxil heart defect, is another. I was myself told that I shouldn’t have more kids because I would risk severe PPD. I had nothing of the sort. Toby is one of the healthiest kids I’ve seen. I know I am not the best example because I wasn’t actually depressed during pregnancy (was never depressed except for when I was taking Zoloft while nursing), but it just goes to show that there is no conscience regarding the harm coming to babies from these drugs. I was told to stay on Zoloft if I ever did want to have another baby. I am so thankful that Toby is drug-free and healthy.
I honestly do not know how these people can live with themselves.
A great example of what the public sees if they are not up on the latest information, but just passively receiving news bytes, is the ABC piece that just came out which covers Heather Armstrong’s story and states that there is no convincing proof that antidepressants cause harm to the baby. In it Heather tells ABC that she went off her meds during her last pregnancy but experienced panic attacks, and then later, suicidal thoughts after her baby was born, so she decided to stay on it during this recent pregnancy.
1) Of course when you go off antidepressants you can experience panic attacks or even suicidal thoughts – it’s called withdrawal. Been there, done that. For me the withdrawal was way worse than being on the drug at a stable dose, but once I got off of the drug and had time for it to clear out of my system I felt so much better.
Perhaps Prozac really helped Heather feel better mentally but that does not justify what could have happened to the baby. During her last pregnancy she says that she had panic attacks. I think I’ll take panic attacks over my baby dying. It wasn’t even until after her baby was born that she says she had suicidal thoughts. So, were those a result of a drug withdrawal, or did she have a hormonal imbalance after birth of estrogen or thyroid that so many women have? I can’t claim to know what caused Heather Armstrong’s depression after her birth of her first child, but I can guarantee that it was not a Prozac deficiency and that there are safe treatments available. However it still makes no sense to me why having PPD would lead someone to consciously decide to take drugs during a subsequent pregnancy. If you had PPD before, then by all means if you are going to take drugs for PPD, do so after the baby is born and don’t do it while nursing. The time it takes you to get your placebo effect should be well worth it considering the peace of mind and increased safety for the baby.
In my opinion the reason women do this sort of thing stems from the misinformation fed to them by their doctors or other people in the public doing the off label marketing spin. Off-label marketing, or promoting psychiatric drugs to pregnant women (no psychiatric drug is FDA approved for pregnancy), by the way, is currently illegal, but the drug companies usually find ways to get others to do it for them. That’s more than I can say for Pfizer’s criminal behavior with the illegal marketing of Geodon and Lyrica.
2) Just because Heather Armstrong’s baby was born without complications (and she had an unmedicated birth if I am not mistaken) does not mean that the drugs are safe. Nor does it mean that whatever drug she is feeding her daughter in her breast milk is safe for the baby. I am so thankful that her daughter is ok so far, because no baby deserves to suffer from these drugs and I truly hope that she continues to be ok.
But this does not excuse pushing drugs on the entire country with misleading information from conflicted “researchers.”
Here is what you will probably not see on ABC any time soon:
(I hope ABC will prove me wrong, but so far no such luck)
Craniosynostosis before / after surgery (caused by antidepressant exposure)
Omphalocele caused by antidepressant exposure
Anencephaly (lack of forebrain) caused by antidepressant exposure - 100% fatal
Look at these devastating photos and ask yourself if it is really worth it to expose your baby to something that can cause a birth defect like this, when there is no taking back the exposure. I lived through suicidal and homicidal thoughts for four months because of Zoloft and I would not want to live through that again, but I would rather go through it (drug-induced or not) a hundred more times rather than have to live through losing a baby or having a baby born with a severe birth defect.
I enjoy occasionally drinking wine or mixed drinks, but that doesn’t mean that because I feel relaxed while drinking alcohol, that I should drink when pregnant or that I suffer from an alcohol imbalance.
Women deserve to know the truth about what can happen with these drugs. They deserve to get the truth about what is causing their emotional problems (not some sales tactic like attributing it to an unproven, unprovable chemical imbalance) and how to safely deal with them with “alternative” medicine, orthomolecular medicine, proven hormone therapy, counseling, etc. They deserve support and understanding and compassion. They do not deserve to be fed deadly lies. But mostly, their babies deserve for the mothers to know.
ABC quotes doctors who say you cannot separate the health of the child from the health of the pregnant mother. This is an illogical catch phrase that they use in order to try and make us feel guilty for insisting on drug free options because some women obviously already take antidepressants and find it impossible to stop (again, this is caused by horrific withdrawal and the drug companies seem fine with that). Try and think about what this really means. They are saying that the mother’s mental health cannot be ignored during pregnancy because doing so hurts the baby. They are saying depression is more dangerous than drugs to the baby. Aside from the fact that this is clearly untrue, and that antidepressants do not reduce birth defects, but rather, increase them, think about whether you have ever been sad during pregnancy. Does feeling sad during pregnancy or being depressed cause PPHN, cardiac defects, the lack of a forebrain, and stillbirth? Or do toxic drugs with mystery chemicals that dangerously elevate serotonin and affect the organ development of babies cause these problems?
Something most people don’t know is that Fen-phen which was taken off the market for heart and lung-related deaths is actually a serotonergic drug which was a chemical mirror image of an SSRI. As I have said repeatedly and will say again, when you have drugs leading to heart problems and PPH in adults, how could they possibly not hurt babies the same way or worse?
Even after considering the fact that antidepressants actually cause depression and suicide, and work about as well as a placebo, this catch phrase makes about as much sense to me as saying that a mom who is addicted to crack, or drinks 5 coffees a day, or smokes, or is an alcoholic, should be told to keep doing those things if it eases her anxiety or fatigue while pregnant. Or about as much sense as telling women to go take Thalidomide because we’re not really sure that Thalidomide causes problems and it was probably actually the morning sickness causing the birth defects and not the Thalidomide. The jury is still out on whether swallowing RAID or drinking bleach while pregnant is bad for your baby. Perhaps working in a nuclear plant or handling plutonium should be considered safe for pregnant women too.
In reality, you cannot separate the need for the baby to be healthy and to survive from the mother’s mental state. How many mothers honestly do not worry that something could go wrong with their babies or do not feel responsible for protecting their children? How many women who lost children can go on day by day not feeling anything about that loss? Which antidepressant are you supposed to take to help with depression if you’re dealing with loss after your baby dies from an antidepressant?
Stop lying to women about what are confirmed, known risks.
If the jury were still out, the FDA would not be issuing warnings like:
“Infants born to mothers who took SSRIs after the 20th week of pregnancy were 6 times more likely to have persistent pulmonary hypertension (PPHN) than infants born to mothers who did not take antidepressants during pregnancy.”
I can only hope that every person responsible for off-label marketing will be held accountable in some way. I am no expert in FDA or criminal law, but when you essentially have money laundering taking place – drug companies giving donations to organizations, who then promote drugs through their own organizations via blogs, press releases, and speeches, it would seem that either the drug companies, or the individuals doing the marketing should be held to account for the off label promotions.
Warnings/Studies Showing Risks Associated with Antidepressants and Pregnant Women or New Mothers:
There is ample evidence to support the risks associated with placing pregnant women or new mothers on antidepressant drugs:
September 7, 2005: The Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration issued an information sheet to health professionals warning that SSRI antidepressant use—especially Paxil—in early pregnancy could cause congenital [defect at birth] heart abnormalities in newborns.[i]
September 27, 2005: The FDA and GlaxoSmithKline issued a warning that pregnant women taking Paxil or other antidepressants during their first trimester of pregnancy, placed their newborns at increased risk of major congenital and cardiovascular [heart] malformations at birth.[ii]
February 9, 2006: The New England Journal of Medicine found that mothers who took SSRI antidepressants in the second half of their pregnancies were 6 times more likely to give birth to infants with a lung disorder called persistent pulmonary hypertension (PPHN). The condition occurs when a newborn’s circulation system does not adapt to breathing outside the womb and causes high pressure in the blood vessels of the lungs making them unable to get enough oxygen into their bloodstream and can be fatal. Between 10% and 20% of infants with PPHN would die even if they receive treatment.[iii]
March 10, 2006: Based on the New England Journal of Medicine study, Health Canada issued a warning that SSRI antidepressants and other newer antidepressants when taken by pregnant women placed newborns at risk of developing the rare lung condition; persistent pulmonary hypertension or PPHN.[iv]
April 7, 2006: A Canadian study from the University of Ottawa published by the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, found pregnant women who used SSRI antidepressants were more likely to have premature and low birth weight babies.[v]
June 2006: An Archives of General Psychiatry study found women who take antidepressants during pregnancy at risk of giving birth to children with respiratory problems.[vi]
July 19, 2006: The FDA warned of the risk of a fatal lung condition in newborns whose mothers took SSRIs during pregnancy. The agency added it was seeking more information about persistent pulmonary hypertension in newborns from the drugs. It asked drug makers to list the potential risk on their drug labels.[vii]
November 2006: The journal Epidemiology published a study entitled “Maternal Use of Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors and Risk of Congenital Malformations.” Researchers did the study from Aarhus University. It found that pregnant women who take SSRI antidepressants are more likely to have babies with birth defects than mothers who don’t take these drugs.[viii]
August 2007: The American Journal of Psychiatry published a study that determined that antidepressant use during pregnancy was associated with premature births.[ix]
September 18, 2007: A study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine of nearly 500,000 women by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center found that nearly 50% of women taking a prescription drug that could cause birth defects did not receive warnings to avoid pregnancy.
Moreover, experts say the seriousness of a life-threatening lung disorder found six times more often in infants born to mothers who take antidepressants during pregnancy is not being adequately conveyed to women while they are considering whether to use the drugs.[x]
The Physicians’ Desk Reference (PDR) states: “Like many other drugs, paroxetine [chemical name for the antidepressant Paxil] is secreted in human milk, and caution should be exercised when Paxil…is administered to a nursing woman.”
Selected SSRI Antidepressant Studies/Warnings on Suicide Since 2001:
March 22, 2004: The FDA warned that SSRIs could cause “anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, impulsivity, akathisia [severe restlessness], hypomania [abnormal excitement] and mania [psychosis characterized by exalted feelings, delusions of grandeur].”
February 18, 2005: A study conducted at the Ottawa Health Research Institute and published in the British Medical Journal determined that adults taking SSRI antidepressants were more than twice as likely to attempt suicide as patients given placebo.[xi]
June 30, 2005: The FDA issued a Public Health Advisory entitled “Suicidality in Adults Being Treated with Antidepressant Medications,” that there could be an increased risk of suicidal behavior in adults taking antidepressants. It recommended that physicians monitor adults who took antidepressants for suicidal tendencies.[xii]
August 4, 2005: The Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration published an Adverse Drug Reactions Bulletin reporting evidence supporting an association between SSRI use and “new onset of suicidality” in adults.[xiii]
[i] “Information for health professionals concerning the use of SSRI antidepressants in pregnant women,” Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration,” 7 Sept. 2005.[ii] “Important Prescribing Information,” Letter to healthcare professionals by GlaxoSmithKline, Sept. 2005; Miranda Hitti, “New Study Links Paxil to Twice as Many Birth Defects as Other Antidepressants,” WebMD Medical News, 27 Sept. 2005.[iii] Christina D. Chambers, Ph.D., M.P.H., Sonia Hernandez-Diaz, M.D., Dr.P.H., Linda J. Van Marter, M.D., M.P.H., Martha M. Werler, Sc.D., Carol Louik, Sc.D., Kenneth Lyons Jones, M.D., and Allen A. Mitchell, M.D., “Selective Serotonin-Reuptake Inhibitors and Risk of Persistent Pulmonary Hypertension of the Newborn,” New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 354, 2006, pp. 579-587.
[iv] Health Canada Advisory, “Newer antidepressants linked to serious lung disorder in newborns,” 10 Mar. 2006.
[v] Andre Pickard, “Prozac-type drugs increase birth risks, study finds,” Globe and Mail, 4 June 2006.
[vi] Tim F. Oberlander, M.D., FRCPC; William Warburton, Ph.D.; Shaila Misri, M.D., FRCPC; Jaafar Aghajanian, B.Sc.; Clyde Hertzman, M.Sc., M.D., FRCPC, “Neonatal Outcomes After Prenatal Exposure to Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor Antidepressants and Maternal Depression Using Population-Based Linked Health Data, Archives of General Psychiatry, Vol. 63, 2006, pp. 898-906.
[vii] “Antidepressants should list new risks: FDA,” Reuters, 19 July 2006.
[viii] Wogelius, Pia, Nørgaard, Mette, Gislum, Mette, Pedersen, Lars, Munk, Estrid, et.al. “Maternal Use of Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors and Risk of Congenital Malformations,” Epidemiology, Vol. 17, No. 6, Nov. 2006.
[ix] Rita Suri, M.D., Lori Altshuler, M.D., Gerhard Hellemann, Ph.D., Vivien K. Burt, M.D., Ph.D., Ana Aquino, B.S., Jim Mintz, Ph.D., “Effects of Antenatal Depression and Antidepressant Treatment on Gestational Age at Birth and Risk of Preterm Birth,” American Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 164, Aug. 2007, pp. 1206-1213.
[x] Evelyn Pringle, “Women not warned about SSRI-related lung birth defect,” Countercurrents.org, 2 October 2007.
[xi] “Drugs Raise Risk of Suicide; Analysis of Data Adds to Concerns on Antidepressants,” The Washington Post, 18 Feb. 2005.
[xii] “Suicidality in Adults Being Treated with Antidepressant Medications,” FDA Public Health Advisory, 30 June 2004.
[xiii] “Suicidality with SSRIs: adults and children,” The Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) Adverse Drug Reactions Bulletin, Vol 24, No. 4, Aug. 2005, p. 14.
Antidepressants For Women of Childbearing Age
(What Big Pharma Wants)
Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD
Director of the National Foundation, March of Dimes, West Michigan Birth Defects Clinic, 1965-1975
Author: The ADHD Fraud
www.Trafford.com
(1193 words)
In the Women Speak blog from Obstetrician-Gynecologist, Dr. Tameeka Law of the Medical University of South Carolina, (MUSC), addresses the question: ‘Can I Continue to Take Antidepressants in Pregnancy?’ http://tinyurl.com/mlyjqc
Dr. Law’s first obligation, like that of every prescribing physician involved in the care of women-of-reproductive-age is to the physical-medical health and well-being of possibly-pregnant, pregnant, or just-delivered women, whether nursing or not, as well as to the embyo, fetus or baby in the equation.
And yet we find Dr. Law espousing views about psychiatry and psychiatric drugs not consistent with her Hippocratic obligation to assure the physical-medical well-being of the patient or patients—mother and embryo, fetus or child.
Consider at the start that Dr. Law and I, and all physicians, regardless of what specialty we enter—go to medical school for 4 years, study all thing normal (biological chemistry, anatomy and physiology) all things abnormal (pathology, diseases) and, in their clinic years, how to tell those who are normal, disease-free, from those who are abnormal—diseased. The other thing we learn going through medical school is that there are no physical abnormalities-diseases in psychology and psychiatry. There is no such thing as a mental, psychological, psychiatric ‘disease.’ But this is not the impression one gets today as the almighty pharmaceutical industry (big pharma) with its bought-and paid for control over psychiatry, the entire medical profession and its medical schools and faculties insists, commands that all things emotional, behavioral, psychologic and psychiatric be called diseases or chemical imbalances so the public will see no logic but to forego “strength of character,” ‘pulling oneself up by the bootstraps,” love, talk therapy, etc, and commit to the drugs, pills, and ‘chemical balancers’ for ‘chemical imbalances’ of the brain they are, drum-beat, told they have (by virtually all of their physicians, joining the making “patients” of normals) and have come to believe they have.
And now, back to Dr. Law and the pregnant mother’s question “Can I continue to take Antidepressants in Pregnancy?”
Having said “depression affects 10 to 15% of pregnant women (how many million in this ‘epidemic’?) Dr. Law admits depression’s symptoms are “difficult to differentiate from normal changes of pregnancy.” In fact depression is a blue, dark, or melancholy mood to which all human beings are subject, from which virtually all emerge. Appropriately, Dr. Law lists the psycho-social factors that can lead to depression but claims that depression alone, as if a disease, “is associated with an increase in such negative physical outcomes of pregnancy as prematurity, low birth weight, and poor fetal growth.” Has Dr. Law been ‘bought,’ influenced? Has her department? Medical school? Is she stacking the deck in favor of antidepressants, in favor of the psychiatry-big pharma cartel—the biggest drug cartel of all time?
Next, ignoring the well-known physical-medical reproductive risks of SSRI antidepressants, Dr. Law says “overall antidepressants are safe to use during pregnancy” (for mother, developing embryo, or fetus) or while breastfeeding (for mother and nursing infant) and their use has not been shown to cause birth defects” Quite a blanket exoneration—this.
As if a salesman, Dr. Law continues to minimize the well-established, well-known risks of SSRI antidepressants for all women of child-bearing age. She continues: “… approximately 1 in 10 women will have major or minor depression sometime during pregnancy and the postpartum period.” Again, a target population of millions as is the well-worn strategy of “biological” psychiatry.
Contrary to glowing assessment of Dr. Law, numerous studies have shown that exposure to SSRIs late in pregnancy has been associated with complications in newborns that include jitteriness, seizures, respiratory distress, rapid respirations, weak cry, poor muscle tone, and an increased rate admission to the neonatal intensive care unit (meaning, in essence that their life is in the balance). Further, the use of Paxil (paroxetine-Prozac like) during the first trimester of pregnancy has been associated with an increased risk of congenital heart malformations leading the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to issue a public health advisory and require the manufacturer to change its pregnancy category from “C” to “D” meaning the drug has been found to be harmful to human fetuses (refers to the unborn from weeks 7-9 of pregnancy to delivery)
We begin to get a different picture than that painted Dr. Law for the pregnant women of South Carolina. The mother’s symptoms from SSRIs antidepressants can include insomnia, rashes, headaches, joint and muscle pain, stomach upset, nausea, diarrhea; reduced blood clotting increasing the risk for stomach or uterine bleeding; diminished sexual interest, desire, performance, and satisfaction, and, finally, the increased risk that antidepressants will incite violent or self-destructive actions (toward any and all present–family members, the embryo, fetus or newborn). When compared with a sugar pill, a.k.a. placebo, all antidepressants, including SSRIs, seem to double the risk of suicidal thinking, from 1%–2% to 2%–4%, in both children and adults.
And what of this? With all these side effects, SSRI antidepressants are no more effective that the sugar pill-placebo in curing depression.
In December, 2006, pro-psycho-pharmaceutical drugging statement, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said to the women of child-bearing age of America that decisions about depression treatment should involve the obstetrician and the mental health clinician (MFCC? Psychologist? Social Worker?) along with the patient, ideally prior to pregnancy. However, the ACOG recognized the inconvenient truth that “because approximately 50% of pregnancies are unplanned, preconception planning for women with depression will not always be feasible, and treatment decisions about SSRIs will undoubtedly occur during pregnancy,” i.e., after mother and the already-conceived, embryo, fetus, child-to-be has been intoxicated, poisoned by the antidepressant which is not known to target a defined abnormality/disease, not in anyone.
Given the facts above, we have every reason to believe nothing would be better than to return to the un-perverted medical science and ethics of the 1960s and 1970s, which would dictate that there being no such thing as a psychiatric disease, there is no such thing as an essential psychiatric drug, especially not for women who are pregnant or could possibly be.
There is no group or classification of psychiatric drugs proved to be without physical-medical risk, short-term or long, to the embryo, fetus, newborn, nursing newborn, nursing infant, or nursing toddler and, for that matter there is no group or classification of psychiatric drugs known to be without physical-medical risk, short-term or long- for their mother or father or for any member of the human race. Look at the rates of Sudden Cardiac deaths with antidepressants (Whang, et al, 2009), Ritalin and all ADHD psychostimulants (Gould et al, 2009), and antipsychotics (Ray et al, 2009). After all they are exogenous compounds, foreign to the body, with no abnormality to make normal, no abnormality to make less abnormal. They are, like all drugs—poisons.
What’s more all physicians, especially those at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists know this. But knowing this their industry economic ties are such that they, like Dr. Law, can no longer speak the truth, not even to their patients: mothers who will give birth to children—healthy and whole or defective, deformed, subnormal, who–whichever they are–that parent will have to care for all of their life.
To restore both the scientific basis of its medical practice and its conscience the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists should immediately acknowledge there is no such thing as a psychiatric ‘disease’ or an essential psychiatric drugs and immediately re-write its ACOG’s Committee Opinion #354, “Treatment with Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors During Pregnancy,” published in the December 2006 issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology, to read “the best possible, psycho-social-familial management should be assured in every case, eschewing all non-essential (including all psychotropic medications) medications.
anyone want to get paid to read junk mail? go to thought this was really cool kinda like twitter etc...http://www.peoplestring.com/?u=rusmac 3 weeks ago
Recently we posed a question to MADNAP Co-Founder Psychiatrist Dr. Grace Jackson regarding how long antidepressants like Effexor remain in the body to damage it and a baby during pregnancy. Here is her reply: In my new book, Drug Induced Dementia – A Perfect Crime, (Amazon link) one of the points I tried to make in Appendix [...]
I have read about problems with the placenta being associated with Paxil, and I have even known people with this problem whose babies were exposed to Paxil or other antidepressants not from the mother but via the father’s sperm and exposure from semen. I am guessing the exposure from mom taking a drug would probably [...]
Please read Julie Edgington’s blog entry about a reocurring nightmare she has about Manie: http://bigpharmavictim.blogspot.com/2009/09/reoccurring-nightmare.html There are also several updates on her blog regarding the current Paxil birth defects trial being covered by Bloomberg news. Reoccurring Nightmare by Julie Edgington Last night I had a reoccurr […]
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