Mental health in Pregnancy

[LissyGlitter]

hiya, does anyone else suffer from mental health problems and is pregnant? Or used to be? Lets use this thread to support each other!

I'm 6 wks pg with dc2, and suffer from some kind of psychotic depressive illness, god only knows what it is, no-one will give me a diagnosis, but it started when I had dd. I have to go cold turkey off my anti sychotic and come gradully off my antidepressant, so i'm dead nervous I'm going to get really ill again.

I've had depression and anxiety on and off for years. I had it before I had DC's, while I was pregnant and also have post natal depression at the moment. I'm pretty sure that there are antidepressants that you can take during pregnancy. Have you asked your GP? It seems a lot for you to cope with stopping all your meds at the same time and also having the added stresses of pregnancy too. Is there any other treatment that your GP can offer you whilst pregnant? When I was pregnant with DS I had CBT...I wouldnt normally have been seen as a priority but that all changes when you're pregnant and I got free treatment that I would have had to wait years to get or go private to have had.

Luckily I have an ace mental helath team called the early intervention team, who deal with psychosis in young people, so i can get CBT pretty much as soon as I ask for it. They have been saying I'll need some to get me through the pregnancy.

I've been offered the choice of staying on my antidepressant if I want, but I'm not too sure whether I want to take that risk. Although obv if I end up trying to top myself again thats more of a risk to the baby I suppose!

Well they say to continue taking medication if the benefits outweigh the risks don't they? So I suppose you have to ask yourself whether you think you'd cope without them. I think the risks are very small with the newer AD's anyway. I'm on AD's whilst breastfeeding at the moment and I was told the risk were tiny. You're lucky to have such good support anyway so hopefully if you have any problems during your pregnancy people will be on hand to help you.

I had a bout of depression when I was pregnant with DD. I was starting to feel suicidal and it was best for me that I took ADs.

I took setraline and DD is now 3.5 and fine .

It sounds like you have good support and hope you manage to stay as well as possible.