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SSRIs: New study demonstrates a 100-500% Increased Risk of Heart Birth
Defects If Taken In Early Pregnancy_
(http://www.drugawareness.org/recentcases/ssri-100-500-increased-risk-of-heart-birth-defects-if-taken-in-early-pregnan
cy)
By _atracyphd_ (http://www.drugawareness.org/author/atracyphd/) on
September 26, 2009


NOTE FROM
DR. TRACY: www.drugawareness.org): This new study SHOULD stop the Mother’s
Act dead in its tracks! The Mother’s Act is designed to medicate pregnant
and nursing mothers for depression and we know what they medicate them with
– these drugs that they have just shown amazingly damaging effects upon
the heart of the fetus! Studies show that serotonin has a large role in
determining the placement and development of organs in a fetus. Disrupting
serotonin levels can lead to many damaging effects apparently including damage
to the heart of a developing fetus.
ANY YOUNG WOMAN WHO INTENDS TO HAVE A FAMILY SHOULD BE WARNED OF THIS
POSSIBILITY OF SERIOUS LIFE THREATING BIRTH DEFECTS IN HER OFFSPRING BEFORE
EVER BEING STARTED ON AN SSRI ANTIDEPRESSANT!! Marketing these drugs to this
age group should be considered criminal when you look at what this study
shows to be the risks to the children born to these mothers. The study from
last fall should have been enough warning for those of child bearing age, or
pre-child bearing age, when we learned that using these SSRI
antidepressants for only one month can damage sperm.
Part of the warning from Dr. Candace Pert, one of the two discoverers of
the serotonin binding process which made these drugs possible, was that they
can cause heart damage in longer term use. Dr. Pert headed the Brain
Chemistry Department for the National Institutes of Health for 13 years. Then
October 20, 1997 she came out in TIME Magazine and called antidepressants
"monsters" that she is alarmed to have had any part of their development.
Dr. Pal Paucher has done extensive research on antidepressants and the
heart. His work is detailed in my book on the Prozac family of
antidepressants: Prozac: Panacea or Pandora? - Our Serotonin Nightmare.
Now if you think the problem of heart defects in the offspring of women
who take these drugs does not affect you because you or no one you know take
the drugs, think again. You need to see what these children go through (if
they survived their mother’s use of these drugs) throughout their lives due
to their mother’s use of these drugs! Who do you think ends up paying the
bills for the numerous reconstructive surgeries, the lifetime of
medications and the lifetime of medical treatment?
WE DO! All of us pay in higher insurance rates, disability payments, etc.,
etc., etc.
PLEASE CAREFULLY EXAMINE THE FOLLOWING RESULTS OF THIS STUDY AND SHARE IT
WITH EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!! Doing so may spare at least one baby from this
horror.
Here is just one small example: _http://bigpharmavictim.blogspot.com_
(http://bigpharmavictim.blogspot.com/) Manie’s mother was given Paxil and
assured it would be okay as so many mothers are told. Her infant son, Manie, was
born with Transposition of the Great Arteries and had to have open heart
surgery when he was only 8 days old. The surgery lasted 12 hours.
___________________________
Paragraph one reads: “If you take antidepressants such as fluoxetine
(marketed as Prozac) early in your pregnancy, you may be doubling the risk that
your newborn will be born with a heart defect, according to a new study.”
Paragraph four reads: “Along with fluoxetine, sertraline (marketed as
Zoloft) and citalopram (marketed as Celexa) seemed to increase the risk more
than others, as did using more than one antidepressant at a time,
according to the report in the September 25th Online First issue of BMJ.”
Paragraph six reads: “Sertraline [Zoloft] more than tripled the risk,
while citalopram[Celexa] more than doubled it. Using more than one SSRI
nearly quintupled the risk of the heart defect.”
_http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE58O39F20090925_
(http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE58O39F20090925)
Antidepressants in pregnancy up heart defect risk
Fri Sep 25, 2009 9:58am EDT Email | Print | Share| Reprints | Single
Page[-] Text [+]

By Anthony J. Brown, MD
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – If you take antidepressants such as fluoxetine
(marketed as Prozac) early in your pregnancy, you may be doubling the risk
that your newborn will be born with a heart defect, according to a new
study.
However, the vast majority of children born to women who take such
antidepressants – known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) – do
not have such defects, the researchers are quick to note.
Earlier studies have tied SSRIs during pregnancy to heart defects, but
also to even more serious birth defects. According to the new study of nearly
half a million children born in Denmark between 1996 and 2003, however,
only heart defects are likely to be associated with the antidepressants, note
co-author Dr. Lars Henning Pedersen, from Aarhus University, Denmark, and
colleagues.
Along with fluoxetine, sertraline (marketed as Zoloft) and citalopram
(marketed as Celexa) seemed to increase the risk more than others, as did using
more than one antidepressant at a time, according to the report in the
September 25th Online First issue of BMJ.
Overall, SSRI use in early pregnancy, defined as 28 days before to 112
days after conception, doubled the risk of a particular kind of heart defect
involving a piece of tissue that separates parts of the heart.
Sertraline more than tripled the risk, while citalopram more than doubled
it. Using more than one SSRI nearly quintupled the risk of the heart
defect.
However, the number of children born with such defects was still quite
small: For about every 250 pregnant women who did not take SSRIs, one infant
was born with the defect, while about two were born with the defect for
every 250 women who took one SSRI, and four for every 200 mothers who took more
than one.
Pedersen told Reuters Health that the results surprised the team.
Still, in an accompanying editorial, Dr. Christina Chambers, from the
University of California, San Diego, comments that doctors and patients “need
to balance the small risks associated with SSRIs against those associated
with undertreatment or no treatment.”
SOURCE: BMJ, online September 25, 2009.


 

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