Sunday, January 20, 2008

Should Bipolar Medication Be Halted During Pregnancy?

When faced with pregnant women who have bipolar disorder, clinicians are urged to balance carefully the potential harm of medication to the fetus and the high risk of recurrent mood episodes in the mother.

Pregnant women with bipolar disorder and their physicians face a dilemma: stay on mood-stabilizing medications, which carry risks of causing birth defects, or discontinue the medications and brace for the possibility of relapse.

The possibility of relapse due to interrupted pharmacotherapy has been quantified in a study published in the December 2007 American Journal of Psychiatry, which warns that pregnant women with bipolar disorder who discontinue mood stabilizers are much more likely to suffer the return of their illness than those who continue taking the medications.

READ MORE @ PSYCHIATRIC NEWS