As I'm not a clinician, I sometimes have a hard time understanding the medical-school-speak used in the research results published in journals. It's important for us all to know what the research finds, but sometimes I just find myself confused and not sure what they're trying to tell me.
Which is why I'm glad Karen Kleiman just wrote about the study "Major Depression & Antidepressant Treatment: Impact on Pregnancy and Neonatal Outcomes" published this month in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
She explains on her Postpartum Stress Center blog:
"… As expected, women with no depression or antidepressant medication had a low rate, (6 percent) of preterm births. But women exposed to SSRI treatment had a 23 percent rate and those with depression and no treatment had similar risks, 21 percent, for preterm birth.
According to Kathy Wisner, MD (lead author of the study and renowned PPD expert):
'Given the similarity in outcomes for continuous SSRI treatment and continuous depression, one possibility is that the underlying depressive disorder is a factor in preterm birth among women taking SSRIs.'
The take-home point (and dilemma) is this:
Though clearly this is more evidence that the use of SSRIs during pregnancy is associated with an increase risk of preterm birth, the risk of an untreated depression during pregnancy poses a similar risk. Suggesting that perhaps factors other than the SSRI treatment (such as the depression itself?) are linked with the preterm birth."
I will tell you that with my first child was born two weeks early and I was on no medication. I will also tell you that with my second birth my daughter was born 4 weeks early, and I happened to be on an antidepressant to prevent PPD since I'd had it with my son. But I also happened to have a kidney stone when I was 8 months pregnant (I inherited them from my father), and just a few days after coming home from the hospital after going through that unholy horror my daughter was born. So do I attribute her early birth to the medication, to the enormous stresscaused bythe kidney stone, or both? Or to something else entirely. I have no clue.
