no
no
no

Mental health and pregnancy/post partum

Psychotropic drugs in pregnancy 

Psychotropic drugs with known teratogenic risk include:
  • Lithium - risk of heart defects 
  • Valproate, - neural tube defects 
  • Lamotrigine - oral cleft 
  • Paroxetine - risk of heart defects 

Lowest known risks during pregnancy: TCA 
Safest of the SSRIs: fluoxetine 


Mental health issues after childbirth 

Baby Blues
  • Affects 50-75% of post-partum women 
  • Characterised by emotional lability 
  • Occurs during the first week after birth 
  • Self-limiting 

Postnatal depression 
  • Affects 10% of new mums 
  • Tends to remit within 2 to 6 months 

Postpartum psychosis 
  • Occurs in 0.2% of childbearing women
  • Starts within the first 2 -4 weeks post delivery
  • Around 15% chance of recurrence in subsequent pregnancies

Small print gem: Taking lamotrigine while breastfeeding can cause dermatological problems in the baby, notably Stevens-Johnson syndrome 


References
author profile image
Abdelghafour

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.

no
Secret collector of interesting anonymised ECGs. Fan of the Bath Photomarathon. Lover of cream teas. [Sarah Hudson] (Your Picture)