Over the last few years, the medical community has been using the term perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs) to describe the spectrum of psychological symptoms women may experience during pregnancy or the postpartum period. [...]
Perinatal psychiatry is a field in which we treat vulnerable patients, a mother and her child, where both the illness we are treating and the treatments we prescribe have the potential to affect the outcome. [...]
Prozac (fluoxetine) was the first SSRI or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. Since its release in 1988, we have been gathering data on the reproductive safety of fluoxetine and other SSRIs. Over the last 32 years, [...]
Clinical Update 2020:Â Lamotrigine (Lamictal) and Pregnancy Maintenance treatment with a mood stabilizer during pregnancy can significantly reduce the risk of relapse in women with bipolar disorder; however, many of the mood stabilizers commonly [...]
A few weeks ago, we published a clinical update for duloxetine (Cymbalta) and pregnancy, stating that there was little new to report since we last covered the topic in 2015. It is somewhat amusing [...]
Many women experience some degree of sleep disturbance during pregnancy. For a significant number of women, the sleep disruption may be so severe as to require some type of intervention. Sleep disturbance is not [...]
Women face difficult choices when deciding whether or not to continue psychiatric medications during pregnancy. For many years, we have typically recommended the older antidepressants, including the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or SSRIs such [...]
Modafinil (brand name Provigil) is a wake-promoting agent which is used to treat sleepiness due to narcolepsy, shift work sleep disorder, or obstructive sleep apnea. It is also used to in others settings, often [...]
Data regarding the reproductive safety of benzodiazepines has always been somewhat difficult to understand. While earlier studies suggested an association between prenatal exposure to benzodiazepines and increased risk of cleft lip and palate, more recent [...]
While the use of lithium has been in decline over the last 20 years, lithium continues to be a useful and highly effective mood stabilizer for women with bipolar disorder. We have long been aware [...]
