In 1956, a German company synthesized thalidomide (its brand name was “Contergan”) and launched it the next year in Europe as a sedative. Unlike sedatives available at the time, such as the barbiturates, thalidomide was apparently completely non-addictive and had few if any side effects.
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Roseann Gumina, M.D., is an obstetrician/gynecologist in private practice in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Like most OB/GYNs, Dr. Gumina sees more pregnant women on antidepressants in a given year than most psychiatrists are likely to see in a lifetime, and her perspective is informative.
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Dr. Hendrick, there has been a lot of confusing and seemingly contradictory data about the safety of SSRIs during pregnancy. What’s your take?
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It’s not all about meds. This is especially true in treating postpartum depression, because so many women are understandably reluctant to expose their breast-feeding infants to antidepressants. This article reviews interpersonal therapy (IPT) as an effective modality for post-partum depression.
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You may not know it, but this year marks a milestone in the world of SSRI teratology research. Ten years ago, JAMA published the first controlled study of Prozac exposure in pregnancy (1). The results? Neither Prozac nor tricyclics caused more birth defects than controls, but both antidepressants caused more neonatal complications.
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There’s nothing like a close friend suffering psychiatric difficulties to motivate a psychiatrist to do some serious reading. Recently, your humble editor encountered this situation.
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Dr. Aiken is the Editor in Chief of The Carlat Psychiatry Report; director of the Mood Treatment Center in North Carolina, where he maintains a private practice combining medication and therapy along with evidence-based complementary and alternative treatments; and Assistant Professor NYU Langone Department of Psychiatry. He has worked as a research assistant at the NIMH and a sub-investigator on clinical trials, and conducts research on a shoestring budget out of his private practice. Follow him on Twitter and find him on LinkedIn.