Weekly Roundup for AUGUST 16, 2019: Recent Publications in Women’s Mental Health
Brexanolone, marketed by Sage Therapeutics as Zulresso, was approved in March 2019, as a treatment for postpartum depression. It has been available for almost two months, and we are very eager to hear about patients’ and clinicians’ experiences with this new medication. Because of some concerns about Zulresso’s side effects, including excessive sedation and sudden loss of consciousness, it was released through a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) program that [...]
Suicidal Ideation in Pregnant Women Not Always Associated with Depression
It seems that there is considerable variation in the estimated prevalence of suicidal ideation in pregnant and postpartum women across studies. One element that may contribute to this variation is how we assess for this symptom. Many studies use self-report questionnaires, such as the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) which asks how often “the thought of harming myself has occurred to me”. Other studies use the Patient Health Questionnaire or PHQ-9 [...]
Weekly Roundup for AUGUST 9, 2019: Recent Publications in Women’s Mental Health
Opioid use in pregnant women is a significant public health concern. A recent study observed that one out of five pregnant women (21.6%) filled a prescription for an opioid and 2.5% received a chronic opioid prescription for greater than 30 days. It is estimated that the number of pregnant women diagnosed with an opioid use disorder (OUD) has more than quadrupled over a 15-year period ending in 2014, increasing from 1.5 [...]
Initiative to Screen All Women for Anxiety, Including Pregnant and Postpartum Women
Anxiety disorders affect nearly 1 in 5 adults in the United States, and women are about twice as likely as men to suffer from an anxiety disorder at some point in their lifetime. According to a recent meta-analysis published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, one in five pregnant women experience at least one type of anxiety disorder. Given the high prevalence of anxiety disorders among women, the Women’s Preventive Services [...]
Lithium and Anticonvulsant Mood Stabilizers: No Higher Risk for Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes
For women with bipolar disorder, choosing whether to maintain or discontinue treatment with a mood stabilizer during pregnancy is challenging. This is a process which requires careful and thoughtful consideration, weighing the risk of adverse outcomes associated with exposure to a particular drug against the risk of recurrent illness in the setting of medication discontinuation. While we have considerable information regarding the teratogenicity of various mood stabilizers, we have much less [...]
Register Online MGH Conference on Women’s Mental Health – October 17, 2019
We are excited to announce that we will be offering a new one day course in Women’s Mental Health in Boston on Thursday, October 17th. This is the day preceding the Annual Psychopharmacology Conference (October 18-20, 2019). This course will focus on the diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric disorders in women across the reproductive lifespan. Specialized knowledge is necessary to tailor treatments to reproductive events such as pregnancy and pregnancy planning, [...]