Well Being: Selective Serotonin‑ReUptake Inhibitors (SSRI)

The medical community continues prescribing SSRIs like an automated candy dispenser

...Bioethicists state that it is impossible to do randomized clinical trials (RCTs) on pregnant women for ethical reasons, which is why more studies haven’t been conducted on the use of SSRIs during pregnancy. Despite this fact, the pharmaceutical companies will then state, without blinking an eye, that RCTs haven’t shown any ill effects and that retrospective and animal studies aren’t the “gold standard.” Whelp - that certainly is a double standard!

Yet, in one published study, the health records from more than 15,000 people in Finland were evaluated, and the authors found that rates of depression in early adolescence were about three times higher among those who had prenatal exposure to SSRIs compared with those who did not - whose mothers also had “psychiatric disorders.” The cumulative incidence of depression among offspring exposed prenatally to SSRIs was 8.2% by age 14.9, compared to 1.9% whose mothers did not take SSRIs during pregnancy, but were in the psychiatric disorder, no medication group (ref).

This means that between 300,000 and 400,000 kids are being exposed to these drugs each year during pregnancy. Suppose the rate of depression is tripling in these children. In that case, that’s adding a significant burden of unnecessary depression, with a million or more adolescents being depressed enough to seek medical attention. This is an unacceptable burden being placed on these young adults.

In addition, it has been hypothesized that the rise in pediatric gender dysphoria cases could be associated with SSRI use during pregnancy. This is another significant risk that has not been adequately studied.

However, and maybe more importantly, the FDA has NOT recognized behavioral changes, sexual dysfunction, or dysregulation in the offspring (i.e., children of pregnant women) as a labeled side-effect of maternal SSRI use during pregnancy.

Yet, animal studies show adult offspring exposed to maternal SSRIs can have:

Altered sexual behavior

Altered stress responses

Altered social behavior

Changes in brain sexual-dimorphic nuclei

Changes in serotonin system wiring

Furthermore, there is even a syndrome identified as “Neonatal Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor Withdrawal Syn

https://www.malone.news/p/well-being-selective-serotoninreuptake