Antidepressants for anxiety in pregnancy

[LBNM19]

Hi, I've posted on here before as i am suffering from severe health anxiety, triggered by a cancer scare around 4 weeks ago now it won't go away. I am 20 weeks pregnant.

Been back to the doctors today crying my eyes out and she's saying I should put my health before the babies and start taking citalopram, to cut a long story short my 2 year old is severely disabled and I just can't risk anything happening to my unborn baby, but in another way feel like I can not go on like this for another 20 weeks.

I sufferd from PND and very bad anxiety after having my 1st son and I got over it, I no I can but it must be something to do with my hormones, I want to go on medication as soon as he's born to help.

She's referred me to a service called iapt and I've got a consultation with them tomorrow by phone I'm hoping that's going to help.

Has anyone else had to go on antidepressants/anxiety meds why pregnant or suffered anything like this?

It's ruining my life and my pregnancy I just don't no what to do :(

Hi sorry you're feeling so awful. I had severe anxiety relating to ocd in my recent pregnancy - dc is 11 weeks. I had suffered with ocd for several years, but had it under better control so we decided to have another child. Was fine initially but things gradually slipped and I was really quite unwell in the last trimester, to the point of dh having time off work and me being virtually unable to leave the house. I was already under the perinatal mental health team (I think IAPT is a psychology service - it comes up if you google it). I had quite strong views about not wanting to be on medication whilst pregnant just like you. I don't know if we made the right decision. I had a number of severe anxiety attacks with hyperventilation etc, and I still worry that I have somehow harmed ds - although so far he seems perfectly healthy. Its a very difficult decision isn't it? Do you take medication whilst pregnant and accept there may be a risk, or do you battle on and hope you being unwell won't harm the baby. I don't have the answer for you I'm afraid, but just wanted to know you're not the only one going through this! If you are considering medication it might be worth asking your doctor for some more information about possible side effects. Most of them have been widely used in pregnancy and the side effects are known from studies carried out. I think most of them are pretty low risk to be honest - I just wasn't happy to accept ANY risk, but that's a very personal decision.
Hope you are feeling better soon.

My experience is slightly different as I was already on antidepressants before pregnancy.

But out of all the antidepressants SSRI's are known to be the safest to take during pregnancy. I am on Sertaline and that is the safest of all to take during pregnancy - luckily for me. I went down from 150mg to 50mg during pregnancy and then recently upped them again to 100mg around 9 months after birth (DD is 14 months old now).

I will be still taking them again when I have number 2 whenever that happens to be.

I agree with the doctors though. A very stressed Mum is potentially worse than the slight chance something could go wrong.

Anxiety can cause premature birth and that's not a good thing.

What they will probably do is give you the lowest dose they think will work for you so probably 20mg citalopram. Then when baby is born they will monitor the baby but actually the chances of anything happening to the baby is nil. The only thing that can happen is a mild addiction to the drug in their systems-- which may just make them a bit jittery/agitated and nothing more than this.

This link may be able to help you:
Mayo Clinic

I am sure you'll come to a decision that is right for you and your family.

Good luck and congratulations on your pregnancy. :)

Hi congratulations, I'm glad to hear baby is doing ok, thanks for replying really helps to speak to someone in a similar situation, I was under a mental health team after having my son, they did help but was on medication to, I honestly never thought that it would happen to me again, I no Its related to my hormones but I can't control it no matter how much I'm trying to, really hoping iapt can help me they put me in as an urgent case and pretty impressed they have been able to fit me in in a days notice x

HilariousInHindsight, thanks for sharing with me, defiantly made me feel better if I do go on meds, I feel so bad for feeling like this and I am worried about how it's effecting him, I will have a look on the link. Thankyou x

I was on amitryptaline for anxiety/insomnia but stopped taking them when TTC as I and didn't want to put the baby at risk. The official line is that although there have been no recorded adverse effects in babies, as they can't research on pregnant women, they can't categorically say that they are safe. They do say that they can be taken if the benefit to mum outweighs the risk to baby.

So I stopped taking them and for a while I was ok, but gradually my insomnia got worse (it's brought on by stress/anxiety and my job has been particularly stressful recently).

When it got too much (at 27 weeks pg) I went to the gp on the advice of the midwife, as I was exhausted and frazzled and worried about the effect on baby. As I didn't want to go back on the amitryptaline the dr signed me off for 4 weeks and I investigated alternative therapy. I was seeing a physio for other issues and he also does acupuncture so I tried that. Didn't work at all. I knew I couldn't stay off work forever but couldn't go back to work as I was, so I reluctantly agreed to go back on the pills.

Spoke to midwife who says she knows plenty of mothers an a much higher dose than me (I take 20mg, whereas an antidepressant dose would be 70-100mg) and their babies were fine, they just may want to monitor baby for withdrawal symptoms once born, but they can't imagine there will be a problem. It would have had more of a detrimental effect on baby if I'd carried on as exhausted and stressed as I was.

I'm back at work, feeling much better and am sleeping at night, so it can only be a good thing for my baby (still counting down to mat leave though!)

Sorry that was rather long, but hope it helps you

I've been referred for CBT on urgent care basis. Whatever suits each person best; I welcome an opportunity to actually tackle it rather than suppress the problem.
3 years on Citalopram didn't cure anything, just made me feel more blaze about everything. With pregnancy came off tablets, and although I've good days and bad days, am embracing the chance to treat the cause, not just the symptoms.

Eminybob it does thankyou, I am under a specialist midwife that deals with mental Heath because of my PND appointments not till July so may try and get in touch with her.

Observer78 I really hope CBT works for you, I completley agree with you about tackling the problem xx

Eminybob forgot to say glad you are feeling much better :)