Emerging data suggest that severe sleep loss around labor and delivery may mediate the link between bipolar disorder and postpartum psychosis, offering new targets for prevention.
Because women with bipolar disorder are at high risk for relapse during the postpartum period, we typically recommend that women continue treatment with lithium throughout the postpartum period. While this intervention clearly decreases risk for postpartum psychiatric illness, the use of lithium while breastfeeding presents certain challenges. Â
Lithium use during pregnancy was associated with an increased risk of preterm birth and large for gestational age infants.
Functional MRI revealed no differences in brain structure of white matter integrity in lithium-exposed versus non-lithium-exposed children born to mothers with bipolar spectrum disorder.
This clinical cohort study showed no impact of prenatal lithium exposure on cognitive functioning in children 6 to 14 years of age.
Because postpartum psychosis is relatively uncommon, we do not have as much information on this illness as we have on postpartum depression. Â In addition, most of the literature we have on postpartum psychosis is not [...]
The dosing of lithium presents certain challenges during pregnancy. During pregnancy, there is a physiologic increase in the glomerular filtration rate (GFR), which is a measure of how quickly the kidney clears renally excreted compounds, [...]
Dr. Lee S. Cohen, Director of the Ammon-Pinizzotto Center for Women's Mental Health at Massachusetts General Hospital, recently shared his insights on the reproductive safety of medication for bipolar disorder with Ob.Gyn News on March [...]
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, especially those with a history [...]
Because postpartum psychosis is relatively uncommon, we do not have as much information on this illness as we have on postpartum depression. Â In addition, most of the literature we have on postpartum psychosis is not [...]
