Pregnancy Caution on Prozac

Women who take Prozac or certain other antidepressants late in pregnancy raise the risk that their babies will suffer jitteriness, irritability and serious respiratory problems during their first couple of weeks, researchers say.

Babies born to women taking antidepressants in the last three months of pregnancy were three times more likely to develop drug-related symptoms than those born to women who did not use the drugs or took them in early pregnancy, according to a University of Pittsburgh study that pooled previous research.

The study was published in today’s Journal of the American Medical Assn.

Most of the symptoms are mild and usually disappear after about two weeks, but some require intensive-care hospitalization, the researchers said.

The drugs involved include Prozac, Paxil and other antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, and also serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, which include Effexor.

At least 80,000 U.S. women yearly take the drugs during pregnancy, the researchers estimated.

Serious respiratory problems develop in perhaps 1 out of 100 infants born to these women, said Dr. Eydie Moses-Kolko, a psychiatrist who led the study.

The Food and Drug Administration and drug makers recently agreed to labeling changes on the drugs to include information about the symptoms, which some doctors call neonatal behavioral syndrome, or withdrawal syndrome.

Moses-Kolko said there had been little research on whether the drugs had lasting effects in children, although one study found that affected newborns were developmentally normal at 8 months.

“I don’t think this is cause for alarm,” but patients should be aware of the risk, she said.