Pregnancy and SSRI's

[i-square-jere.livejournal.com]

Hey friends!

So my husband and I have had plans for awhile to conceive this fall. He'll be starting graduate school, I'll have a year off until I start my grad program next fall, and we'll have health insurance through school. And we've both wanted kids for a while, and we definitely feel emotionally and financially prepared for a tiny human.

I'm also taking an SSRI, 10 mg Celexa q.d., and I have been for about a year. I remember when I went to get a rx renewal back in February, I mentioned to my doctor that we were interested in getting pregnant before the end of the year. She told me about a recent study that looked at a correlation between SSRI use within a year of delivery and autism, and said that the results were fairly significant. I kind of took it with a grain of salt (because seriously everything causes autism, amirite?), and didn't really find anything conclusive. But it still kind of freaked me out that my doctor was concerned enough to tell me about it.

I'm usually pretty level-headed about things, and am pretty good at deciphering actual statistical data from news extrapolation, but I can't help but worry about this. Also, since neither one of us are in school right now, we don't have access to a journal database, which is kind of what I rely on to see original studies.

So does anyone know anything more about the SSRI/pregnancy/autism connection? How much should I trust my doctor on this? I could get off of my Celexa, but I've worked on tapering off before and it seems like 10 mg is the lowest dose I can take while still keeping my head above water, and I'm hesitant to get off of it completely because I think I owe it to my future progeny to offer them a mentally healthy mom.

Thanks!

Comments

[karalianne.livejournal.com]

I wrote a whole long comment and it got eaten because I hit "previous" instead of "post comment" - is there something we can do about that, mods? It's due to the size of the buttons. :P

Attempting to rewrite my comment...

I think a lot depends on what you're prepared to deal with and how concerned you really are about the possible connection. I'm sure you could find plenty of autistic people whose mothers didn't take SSRIs while pregnant, and lots of non-autistic people whose mothers did take them. One study is really only one study. Also, there may be another SSRI you could take that would work just as well and be safer than Celexa.

Autism really isn't The End - it will change your plans and your life, for sure, but if you know it's a possibility you can do some research and be totally prepared if your child is diagnosed with it.

I remember watching a segment on a news program about a couple that found out that their daughter was going to born with a form of Dwarfism, so they researched the condition and were prepared with all kinds of supports for her when she was born. As a result, her communication skills were leaps and bounds ahead of her same-age peers since they chose to focus on that while her motor skills were catching up.

Since the best things you can do for an autistic preschooler are the same things you would do for a non-autistic preschooler (just a bit more intense), you probably wouldn't be looking at a lot of huge differences at first anyway.

Obviously everyone's experience is going to be different. What I know is that, in the families I worked for (when I worked with autistic children), the children who were happiest and the parents who were the least stressed were the families that focused on what was best for each child and not how hard it was to get services/the right services for the autistic child. One family in particular, the youngest daughter was autistic and the daughter two years older than her was gifted. The older girl was placed in split classes at school where she was in the younger grade, so she was constantly challenged. Meanwhile, the younger girl had a full-time aide to help her participate in her class activities. She just graduated from grade 12. I haven't been in touch to find out what's next for her, but I'm sure it will be something she loves, "even though" her speech is stilted and very marginal and she has difficulty with most language-based activities.

Thank you for bringing this up, by the way. I have ADHD, and I'm going to have to stop taking my Adderall when my husband and I decide to start trying to get pregnant. I'm not looking forward to it, but there's absolutely no option for me on that count.