breastfeeding and depression

[Steffanoid]

so this is something im going to be taking up with my midwife, pretty sure my doctor said it was ok.

im on 20mg daily, which came down from 30mg right at the beginning of the pregnancy and may drop another 10mg over the next few months depending on life after the birth.

long story short is anyone successfully ebf on the anti-depressant citalopram or known of anyone who does, I've asked Dr google but half say yes half say no, looking for you lovely MN'ERS who I can trust

thanks in advance

[EauRouge]

Here is the LactMed page on Citalopram. You might also want to have a chat with the Breastfeeding Network who are good with this kind of thing.

Good luck with the birth of your baby :)

[Steffanoid]

may have had the genius idea of looking at the info sheet that comes with the tablets and it says no as does the NHS website, common sense should have sent my addled brain to those 2 things first, looks like im off to tge docs to see about changing my dose/looking at alternatives as I really wanted to bf

[EauRouge]

Did you read the LactMed info? There's a difference between something not being safe for BF and something not being licensed for BF. There are ADs that are safe for BF mothers, sertraline is commonly prescribed for mothers with PND. Have a chat with BFN, I'm sure they will help to reassure you :)

[OodPi]

I fed dd1 whilst on those. She's now 13 and fine.

[DewDr0p]

I also took citalapram while pg/bfing ds3; cons was v relaxed about it, all fine.

I know Sertraline is SSRI of choice for bfing BUT it's not recommended for pg and the cons said there was no need to mess about with changing it.

Ds3 is now a v robust 6 yo btw.

[Steffanoid]

the bfn PDF seems to suggest it may be ok, and one site we've found suggests coming off it may cause withdrawal effects on the baby, the lactmed site suggests that on a low dose it made no difference,

I think the difficult thing is that significant studies cant be done into it, the sizes of test subjects are very small

I've got the contact info for my mental health midwife, the breastfeeding lady, my doc and my actual midwife and now the number for tge bfn, I think gathering all this info should help me out, my doctor doesn't seem to fussed about most things. if I can lower my dose like I did 6 months ago to 10mg this time then look at stopping completely in another few months this may be good,
one good thing is that the ssri medication is not addictive,

this is restoring a bit of faith for me

[Steffanoid]

thank you for your advice ladies, putting my mind a lot more at rest than my mum who went oh well you're just going to have to ff when she knows I really would like to give bf a try

[leedy]

I know a friend of mine BF on citalopram with no problems, and another on Prozac - I BF DS1 on sertraline for PND, also with no issues, but that was something I started after the pregnancy. Agree that talking to the BFN is a great idea and best of luck!