Saturday, October 18, 2008

Not Enough Research on SSRIs and Pregnancy

Kerri T. wants women to know that antidepressants and pregnancy don't mix. Kerri says that she was never told about the link between SSRIs and birth defects and she believes her daughter's health problems are the result of exposure to an SSRI antidepressant.

"During my whole pregnancy, I took 300 mgs of Effexor XR," Kerri says. "My psychiatrist never told me about any of the warnings and I never saw any of the sample packets where it said that if the baby was exposed to Effexor in the third trimester there could be problems and longer hospital stays.

"I delivered Caroline at full term. She had no seizures during the pregnancy. She was born via C-section and immediately after birth started having seizures. The doctor took her out and took her right to NICU (neonatal intensive care unit). I couldn't even hold Caroline right away; they just took her away. She was put on 4 seizure medications and on the ventilator.

"At 3 days old, Caroline basically died. They had tried to take her off the ventilator and she died. The doctors did 2 minutes of chest compressions and intubated her. She was hypotonic from the medicine. Luckily, they brought her back. The following week they tried to take her off the ventilator again and she coded again."

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