The following post was first published in OB/GYN News. Please see our OB/GYN News archives here. Publish date: November 1, 2016 By: Gerald G. Briggs, BPharm, FCCP, Christina Chambers, PhD, MPH, Lee S. Cohen, MD, & Gideon Koren, MD Editor’s note: As [...]
About half of all pregnancies are unplanned. In this situation, many women who conceive while on psychotropic medications decide to abruptly stop their medications when they discover they are pregnant. While this may seem like the safest option, in terms of protecting the developing fetus, we have data demonstrating high rates of relapse in women who discontinue antidepressant medications or mood stabilizers proximate to conception. We now have data (from several studies in non-pregnant populations) to indicate that the rate of medication discontinuation (abrupt vs. gradual) may also affect risk of relapse.
