Antidepressants 68 percent relative Increase The Risk Of A Miscarriage

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Antidepressants

Increase The Risk Of A Miscarriage

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By Ed Silverman // June 2nd, 2010 //

7:51 am

Any of the commonly used antidepressants was associated with a 68

percent relative increase in the overall risk of a miscarriage, and

there were significant associations with the use Pfizer’s Effexor and

GlaxoKline’s Paxil, according to a study in the Canadian Medical

Association Journal. Also worth noting: the use of more than one class

of antidepressant doubled the risk.

The study examined 5,124 women who suffered miscarriages. A total of

284, or 5.5 percent of the women who had a miscarriage had at least one

prescription for an antidepressant filled during pregnancy, compared

with 1,401, or 2.7 percent of the matched control group. The authors

noted that previous studies yielded inconsistent findings. There have

also been lawsuits over links between Glaxo and birth defects (see

this). The Paxil and Effexor labeling mentions abortion was a rare

side effect (page

34 and page 42,

respectively).

Why was the study conducted? The authors noted that one of four

pregnancies ends in miscarriage, but that most studies of

antidepressants never looked at this as a primary outcome and had small

samples. As a result, they “lacked statistical power or had inherent

biases owing to unmeasured confounders.” The study was conducted

between 1998 and 2003 in order to obtain info that was independent of

regulatory warnings about antidepressants that were issued in 2004 (here

is the study).

Some of the findings: women who had miscarriages were more likely to

be older, living in an urban setting, receiving social assistance,

diagnosed with depression or anxiety, visited a psychiatrist during the

year before pregnancy and had a “longer duration” of exposure to

antidepressants during the year before pregnancy.

“These results, which suggest an overall class effect of selective

serotonin re-uptake inhibitors, are highly robust given the large

number of users studied,” Anick Bérard, one of the authors and a

consultant for a plaintiff in the litigation involving Paxil, tells The

Telegraph. “Physicians who have patients of child-bearing age

taking antidepressants or have pregnant patients who require

antidepressant therapy early in pregnancy discuss the risks and

benefits with them.”