Antidepressant medications like Prozac and Zoloft have been around for decades and have an amazing safety track record. For the first 20 years of use, these medications were also considered extremely safe in pregnancy as well, and this was greatly reassuring as there are more and more woman of child-baring age on these drugs. Then, a few years ago, there were some questions raised about safety, and since then, further data has been somewhat mixed about ‘complete safety’ for pregnant women.
This latest study of a very large population, over 900,000, shows that there is no increase in heart defects in children of woman who were on anti-depressants like Prozac during their first trimester. This type of large data set goes a long way toward giving us confidence that using such medications during pregnancy remains safe.