Pregnancy and Psychiatric Drugs

Very often in my office, when doing an intake on a child with a developmental disorder, I find that the mother was on a psychiatric drug during pregnancy. I’ve had an underlying suspicion that there has to be some association – Well a new study has just shed some new light on that.

In the Jouranl of Obstetrics and Gynecology the authors write, “All psychotropic medications studied to date cross the placenta, are present in amniotic fluid adn can also enter human breast milk.” During fetal development hormonal regulation is tightly controlled, and psychotropic manipulation can severely alter that process. Here is a list of common psychotropic drugs and their potential side effects on feta development and childbirth

Lithium: associated with an increase in congenital cardiac malformations – 1.2 to 7.7 times higher
Valproate: associated with increased risk for fetal abnormalities
Benzodiazepine: floppy infant syndrome
Carbamazepine: fetal abnormalities
Paroxetine: cardiac malformations, congenital cardiac malformations, anencephaly
Lamotrigine: no known associations and seems to be a potential therapy for bipolar patients while pregnant