ADs for PND - do they work? What about BF?

[MamaLaMoo]

Am EBF 16 week old DD, have diagnosed PND/anxiety and getting counselling. Early waking is a troublesome symptom as well as the constant inability to relax, feel wired for fight or flight all day.

Has any BF mum on here taken an AD, did you have SSRIs? Did they work?

I have heard such mixed things about SSRIs and GP who is lovely and supportive, said really there was only one suitable if BF.

Here's a really useful info sheet from the BfN

Citalopram is the usual.

There's quite a few ADs that have been officially deemed safe in pregnancy (plus most of the others where the NHS line is 'safety not yet established' but they won't tell you to stop taking them as in practice it's not an issue).

According to the consultant who advised me yesterday, sertraline is the favoured NHS AD at the moment for pregnant/bf women, but citalopram is also common.

I took an oldfashioned tricyclic that I'd taken before, but found that actually I was less seasonally-depressed than usual with ds, as simply getting out of the house and going for long walks with him in the buggy (as required by postnatal physio and the builders in my house!) was very good for me, and I wasn't expected to do much else, just keep him alive and do the odd errand in the shops.
Hope you feel better soon OP - it's hard when the baby's asleep and you can't!

thank you RightUpMyRue.

I took the tricyclic prothiaden for depression as a teenager which worked well. Why do SSRIs get prescribed instead these days?

TBH Mama, I don't know for sure, I'm not a prescriber. They're more effecitve? The transfer is less? They're cheaper?

Speak to your GP, print out the info sheet I linked to and take it to her.

Best of luck.

I breastfed on sertraline without any issues.

I have printed the BfN sheet and will take to doctor.

I am wary of SSRIs as my brother was on them for a while. The first one he took disagreed really badly with him but this was not picked up by GP who thought his strange behaviour (agitation, aggression, sleepless) was due to the depression. He was taking citalopram.