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
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.
For many women with bipolar disorder, lamotrigine (Lamictal) is an effective mood stabilizer. Given its favorable reproductive safety profile, lamotrigine is a reasonable option for women who require treatment with a mood stabilizer during pregnancy.  [...]
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 [...]
We don’t hear this clinical question so often but it does come up from time to time.  While the anticonvulsant oxcarbazepine (Trileptal) was initially promoted as a mood stabilizer for patients with bipolar disorder, it [...]
While we use lithium less commonly now than we have in the past, lithium is still one of the very best mood stabilizers we have. Â And with regard to its use during pregnancy, we have [...]
Women with bipolar disorder often experience fluctuating mood symptoms across the menstrual cycle, typically reporting an exacerbation of symptoms during the premenstrual phase of the cycle (Rasgon et al, 2003, 2005). Â Other studies have indicated [...]
Multiple studies have demonstrated that the postpartum period is a time of increased vulnerability in women with bipolar disorder. Â However, because many of the commonly used mood stabilizers carry some teratogenic risk, many women elect [...]
We have an abundance of articles which address the impact of psychotropic medications on pregnancy. Much less research, however, has focused on how pregnancy may affect how these medications work. Physiologic changes take place during [...]
