National Pregnancy Registry for Atypical Antipsychotics Milestone
We are excited to announce the enrollment of our 1000th participant in the National Pregnancy Registry for Atypical Antipsychotics! Formed in 2008, the Registry was established at MGH to prospectively evaluate the rates of malformations among infants exposed in utero to atypical antipsychotics. Data from the Registry thus far suggest that atypical antipsychotics as a class are not major teratogens on the order of valproic acid. The large number of [...]
New Research from the CWMH: Patterns of Atypical Antipsychotic Use During Pregnancy
The use of the newer “atypical” or second-generation antipsychotic agents is increasing. Atypical antipsychotics are now used to treat a spectrum of psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, PTSD and other anxiety disorders. Using data from the Medicaid Analytic eXtract (MAX) data of pregnant women who delivered infants born between 2001 and 2010, Park and colleagues looked at patterns of antipsychotic use during pregnancy. Among 1,522,247 pregnancies [...]
Weekly Roundup for AUGUST 18, 2017: Recent Publications in Women’s Mental Health
Brandlistuen and colleagues look at the long-term effects of prenatal exposure to benzodiazepines and sedative-hypnotics, attempting to control for genetic and environmental confounds by using sibling-controlled comparisons. Using data from Danish registers, Liu and colleagues find that first-onset nonpsychotic postpartum affective disorder can be a marker of underlying bipolarity. Association of prenatal exposure to benzodiazepines and child internalizing problems: A sibling-controlled cohort study. Brandlistuen RE, Ystrom E, Hernandez-Diaz S, Skurtveit S, [...]
Maternal Smoking During Pregnancy Associated with Psychiatric Illness in Offspring
In the United States, the prevalence of smoking in pregnant women has declined; however, according to data gathered from 29 states by the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS), about 13% of women smoked during the last 3 months of pregnancy. The prevalence varied according to state, with the highest rates reported in West Virginia (28.7%), Arkansas (24.0%),Tennessee (19.7%), and Maine (19.5%). Certain groups of women were more likely to [...]
New Study at the CWMH: Course of ADHD During Pregnancy and the Postpartum
About 1.4 million people in the U.S. have been diagnosed with ADHD, and about 60-80% of children diagnosed with ADHD will need to take their medication into adulthood. When girls diagnosed in childhood become reproductive-aged women, they face challenging decisions regarding how to proceed with their treatment when they are also family planning. There are different kinds of medication used to treat ADHD. Among the most commonly prescribed are methylphenidate [...]
Prescribing Psychotropic Medications with Opioids During Pregnancy May Increase Risk for Neonatal Withdrawal
Illicit opioid use has steadily increased over the past decade, and this increase is most prominent in the 18–25 age group, which includes women of reproductive age (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2013). Paralleling this increase in illicit opiate use in this population has been a significant increase in the use of prescription opioids for pain management. As a result of this increase in use and abuse of [...]