Women taking anti-depressants during early pregnancy have a small but important increased risk of giving their children heart defects, according to researchers.
The British Medical Journal published the findings and says depression affects up to 20% of pregnant women.
Taking anti-depressants while pregnant caused problems in less than 1% of children.
The researchers say that overall the risks are very low and that women should speak to doctors before stopping their drugs.
Way back in in 2005, the US Food and Drug Administration issued a warning about the SSRI paroxetine because of an increase in birth defects if it was taken during pregnancy. Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) are medicines commonly used for the treatment of depression. This study researched into whether there was a link between SSRIs taken in the first trimester of pregnancy and septal malformations in over 400,000 children born in Denmark between 1996 and 2003. The age of the mother and whether or not she smoked were taken into account.
The defects found are where there is a problem with the wall that divides the left side of the heart from the right side. The researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark said these defects were 0.4% more prevalent in children of women who redeemed a prescription for an SSRI in the first trimester of pregnancy.
Two SSRIs, sertraline and citalopram, were associated with the problem. Two others, paroxetine and fluoxetine, were eliminated.
Four times as many septal heart defects were found in women who were taking more than one SSRI. There were no other malformations linked to taking SSRIs.
Lars Henning Pedersen, who led the research, said: "Treatment of depression during pregnancy balances the risk of the medicine with that of the depression, and we investigated only a part of the information needed to make evidence based decisions.
"Even if SSRI use is causally related to septal heart defects, these heart defects might not necessarily require treatment and some might resolve spontaneously."
Cathy Ross, cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation (BHF), said: "Depression can be a debilitating condition.
"The benefits to the mother of taking SSRIs during pregnancy needs to be weighed up against the small increase in risk to the foetus."
Sept 2009
| 
Children Of Working Mums Are Less Fit
