Hi, has anybody out there taken psychiatric medication during pregnancy especially the first trimester? ?
Hi, when I became pregnant, I was in a relapse of a severe depression, with a diagnosis of possible bipolar II. I was put back on Zoloft and started on Lamictal. To give you some background, I had been diagnosed with severe PTSD and suicidal ideation, and was hospitalized two years ago for same. After 13 months I finally got off the Zoloft and stopped taking the Lamictal for side effects and then a few months later made the decision to get back on it. Not even a week into it, I got pregnant and my practitioner took me off all meds, because the therapeutic level of the meds hadn’t been reached. They did tell me though, that Zoloft was proven harmless in pregnancy. Honestly, I have never been better in my entire life for this 19 weeks of pregnancy. I don’t know if it’s because I wanted the pregnancy so badly (I’m 34, this is my first baby, and I’m SO thrilled) or if it’s the high pregnancy hormones or what. My MD said it’s likely this will continue for the duration of the pregnancy, but
I have been taking anti depressants since the age of 14. When I wanted to get pregnant I wrote to the makers of the tablets (mine are Sertraline) and they sent me all the research they had done on taking these tablets during pregnancy. For my specific medication there was NO proof of any increase in deformities etc. The only thing that they had proved was that when the baby is born SOMETIMES they can have withdrawal symptoms for a couple of days, eg. cry a little more etc. Also I was advised not to breastfeed as well. We had to weigh up the pros and cons of me stopping them and risking getting suicidal while I was pregnant – or taking the “risk” that hadnt even been proven and taking them throughout. I decided to carry on taking them but I reduced the dose very gradually first so that I was only taking half of what I used to. I think this was the best thing for me to do as I know that I wouldnt have been able to cope without them and this would have put not only my health at risk but a
