Study: Psychotropic Drugs Increase Risk of Birth Defects

It won’t cure your depression, but it could maim your child.
 

New research shows that the probability of birth defects is increased by use of psychotropic drugs during pregnancy. During an age of endemic antidepressant usage, the implications are sobering.

Professors Ebbe Holme Hansen and Lise Aagaard of the University of Copenhagen concluded that between 1998 and 2007 psychotropic drugs were associated with 429 adverse drug reactions in Danish children under the age of 17. More than half of the 429 affected children suffered from serious complications, including severe withdrawal syndrome, and birth deformities.

The study, published in the open access journal BMC Research Notes on June 25, was based on a total of 4,500 pediatric adverse drug reaction reports submitted during the research period. It found that 42 percent of adverse reactions were the result of psychostimulants, such as Ritalin, 31 percent were associated with antidepressants, such as Prozac, and 24 percent were the consequence of antipsychotics, such as Haldol.

The researchers believe these findings should jolt medical personnel into rethinking what is a cavalier approach to prescription mood-altering drugs.

“A range of serious side effects such as birth deformities, low birth weight, premature birth, and development of neonatal withdrawal syndrome were reported in children under 2 years of age, most likely because of the mother’s intake of psychotropic medication during pregnancy,” said Aagaard.

“Psychotropic medication should not be prescribed in ordinary circumstances, because this type of medication has a long half-life,” she continued.

The study also found the dosages of these drugs to be problematic.

“If people take their medicine as prescribed it will be a constantly high dosage, and it could take weeks for one single tablet to exit the body’s system. Three out of four pregnancies are planned, and therefore society must take responsibility for informing women about the serious risks of transferring side effects to their unborn child,” Aagaard said.

A separate study this month shows that a pregnant woman’s intake of antidepressants leads to a 68 percent increased risk of miscarriage.

Seeing as the use of antidepressants is increasing in Denmark, the United States and other countries, the findings of the reports showcase a dangerous lack of knowledge regarding the risks of expectant mothers using prescription antidepressants.

Western culture is hooked on the pharmaceutical promise of a quick fix for personal problems. But depression is only a symptom of a larger ailment, and people are not digging to the true causes of their mental anguish—corrosive interpersonal relationships, imbalanced diets, perverted entertainment, poor work ethic, overall selfish outlook, etc. Changing behavior is considered too difficult. It’s too inconvenient, while swallowing a pill is easy. But mood-altering medications seldom cure anything, and, as evidenced by this bmc report, they can introduce an entirely new set of grave problems.

For more on this subject, see “Will Pills Solve Our Ills?