We are seeing an increasing number of moms being on antidepressants, mostly
Zoloft and Paxil, during their pregnancies.  It seems as if it is given to
anyone that may be having a bad day when they see their doctor.  It may be
the shortened length of time the doctors can spend with each patient, etc.
but I see a very bad trend. We are also seeing an increasing number of
babies of mothers taking these meds in pregnancy that are needing CPR after
birth as they have very low Apgar scores.  They end up in the Special Care
Nursery having symptoms of withdrawl.  Our neonatologists are beginning to
relate the two and are wondering what everyone else is seeing.  It is not
uncommon for the moms to be on 2 or even 3(in one case) antidepressants
during pregnancy at the same time.  Is this the problem?  The one baby that
actually had to be on Morphine after delivery for withdrawl was born of a
mom on Paxil, Zoloft and Klonopin.  They think the Klonopin was mostly the
culprit.  I am also wondering if the combination of anesthesia and the
effects of the antidepressant during labor cause more depression as our
anesthesia rates are way too high also.  It seems to me on given days, I
will have babies born within the same 8 hour shift that are very
disorganized and clueless after birth and I have started investigating
anesthesia amounts, etc. in these cases-have not come to any conclusion,
however, just anectodal.
What are you seeing in your practices?  Dr. Hale and Dr. Nice, what are
your thoughts?

Denise Stuart, RN,BSN,IBCLC
Kent, WA

             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html