I'm pretty sick of seeing all these references to "the risks of untreated or under-treated depression." While certainly depression carries the risk of suicide, it's not like every depressed person is suicidal. The "risk" of not taking drugs! As if antidepressants were so effective when it's already known half those who take them aren't helped.

Consider how depressed one might become if one has a baby with birth defects!

Excuse me? One in 246 gets a septal heart defect and that's LOW??? I totally disagree, especially in light of the studies showing these drugs do barely better than placebo. This is totally unacceptable.

Where are the right-to-lifers and their much vaunted concern for babies when you need them?

This study only looked at “Heart Defects” and some information only pertains to “septal heart defects”.

"...researchers looked at almost 500,000 children born in Denmark between 1996 and 2003..."

I wonder why they used data from over 6 years ago for this "new” study.

In my opinion; most research studies find what they are LOOKING for. Do we know who funded this study? Wonder why it’s coming out now.

A search on FDAble.com under Paxil and Paroxetine using the description “Congenital” (conditions that are present at birth) yielded 1974 reports listing the drug as the Primary Suspect and 2142 listing the drug but not as Primary.

The other SSRI’s and SNRI’s with the same search words were under 200 reports each.

One in 246 is not low. Usually downs syndrome risk for a woman of age 35 is quoted as about one in 250 and that is usually called "High." Women are frequently pressed into dangerous genetic prenatal testing for risks far lower than half of a percent.

I'm also not surprised that other SSRIs are proving problematic, though I'm sure the other drug manufacturers were happy for Paxil to take the fall initially.

I'm sorry for posting again, but this is just really getting my goat (can you tell I was recently pregnant?). Women are publicly chastised for ingesting even a tiny drop of alcohol (even in the third trimester) and cautioned strongly against eating certain cheeses, smoked fish, deli meats and for g-d's sake we're even told not to eat out of a *salad bar* to avoid largely miniscule prenatal risks. And then we're told in the next breath to trust that anti-depressants are actually *good* for us, and *good* for our babies, because they "protect against the risks of untreated depression," and to consider any drug risks to be small because, oh, there's a 99% chance everything will be fine. I so wish we had some vague sense of relative risk as a culture. I bet dollars to donuts that first-trimester-SSRI is way riskier than a trip to the salad bar.

Further fresh information on anti depressant created metabolic disturbances comes from September 1, 2009 American Journal of Psychiatry of a study by R.D. Jindal. The study: "Long Term antidepressant use and risk for diabetes: Cause for concern and optimism" American Journal of Psychiatry, September 1, 2009. Results from the study found daily doses of moderate amounts of antidepressants is equatable to higher risk for diabetes over the long term.