Anti Depressants and breast feeding

[mummyhill]

I have PND and have been prescribed CITALOPRAM 20mg/day can anyone tell me if this is safe to take whilst breastfeeding as it seems to be a contraindication on the leaflet and I did tell the GP I was breast feeding but am not sure that she was listening properly.

The thing with all anti-depressants is they put a warning on them because when they research them, they don't want to test on pregnant or bf women, so they just can't be sure whether there are side-effects on babies. And they don't want yuou to sue them later if it turns out there is a problem.

I was on citalopram 20mg while I was pregnant and GP suggested I stop at 8mo (as I felt better anyway) so I wouldn't have to bf with it. However I then got REALLY depressed so other GP (in the group practise) put me back on again just before ds was born 11mo ago. One of the midwives in the hospital queried whether i should bf if I had to take it, which made me panic quite a lot. However I saw a psychiatrist, who obviously is much more knowledgable about antidepressants, and she increased the dose to 40mg/day! Actually I was on 80mg for a week or so cos I got confused! I made quite a fuss of checking it was okay with breast feeding and was told it is. DS is now 11mo and i'm still partially breast feeding him. He is very healthy and very happy. He's very chilled out, which does make me wonder sometimes.....but in a good way, people say he's one of the happiest babies they know. I know I'm biased but people also say he's remarkably alert, bright etc. He's very sociable, pretty strong and already walking.

I know you can't judge just on one baby, but hope that encourages you.