Prozac and pregnancy - pregnant women taking depression-fighting fluoxetine showed no higher risk of miscarriage than pregnant women not taking the drug - Biomedicine - Brief Article

Science News, Oct 19, 1996

Prozac can be a lifeline for a depressed woman, but this depression-fighting drug is generally banned during pregnancy. Now, a study offers women more information on the question of whether they can safely use Prozac when preg- nant.

Prozac (fluoxetine) is the most commonly prescribed antidepressant in the United States. Yet not much is known about the drug's impact on a developing embryo or fetus. Kenneth Lyons Jones of the University of California, San Diego and his colleagues studied 228 pregnant women who called the California Teratogen Information Service (CTIS) from 1989 through 1995 because they were taking fluoxetine. The team compared those women to 254 pregnant women who called during the same period but were not taking the drug.

The researchers report in the Oct. 3 New England Journal of Medicine that the women taking fluoxetine had no greater risk of miscarriage than the control group. The study also revealed no heightened risk of major birth defects, such as cleft palate, among their babies.

So far, so good.

The study did uncover some potential dangers, however. When taken during the first trimester of pregnancy, fluoxetine seemed to increase the chance that a baby would be born with three or more minor malformations, such as fused toes.

Women who continued to take the drug in the third trimester of pregnancy ran a greater risk of premature delivery and of delivering small babies suffering from a variety of health problems.

Pregnant women taking fluoxetine should talk to their obstetrician about the new findings, advises Jones. Those who can stop taking the drug safely during pregnancy should do so, he says. However, "there clearly are a number of women who, by virtue of their depression, need to continue that drug."