Hello everybody,
I know that there has been lots of discussion about medications for
treating depression in breastfeeding mothers so please excuse yet
another question on that topic.  I am going to buy myself Tom Hale's
book!! I have been contacted by a mother who is nursing a 9 month old
but only a few times a night and rarely during the day.  She is very
depressed (has been so on and off for years she says) and wants to
take medication.  It seems to me that she has bipolar depression.
Her treating doctor says that she will do best on a SSRI drug. I have
lots of information on tricyclic drugs and even about prozac but Ido not
know what SSRIs are but I have a note from previous discussions on
lactnet that sertraline is the "best" SSRI.  Are there indeed drugs
in this class that she can take and not wean completely as she is
being pressured to do both by the doctors and by family who are
caring for the baby when she can't? As well, it would seem that given
the age of the baby, who is already receiving some formula and eating
lots of solids, and the low level of breastfeeding that not much
medication would be passing to the baby as well.  I  hope I am not
garbling the medical "stuff" too much.  I would appreciate input.
The medical library at the university here only has older editions of the
Lawrence and Briggs books.  I am learning so much from reading
Lactnet!
Susanna (LLL leader and mother of a nursing 4 year old in Halifax)