Anti-depressants link to pregnancy risk

A study published in the British Medical Journal says that children born to women taking anti-depressants in early pregnancy have a small but important increased risk of heart defects.

The study, which looked at whether there was an association between selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors taken in the first trimester of pregnancy and malformations in over 400,000 children born in Denmark between 1996 and 2003, noted that depression affected up to 20% of pregnant women and that exposure to anti-depressants in the womb caused problems in less than 1% of children.

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