Postpartum depression (PPD) is a serious condition that affects millions of new moms each year, and many healthcare professionals recommend depression medication to help combat it. Other postpartum mental health conditions, like postpartum OCD, may also be improved by using antidepressants. Recent research outlines the importance of treating postpartum depression by highlighting the negative impact that depression can have on mothers and their infants.
The prevalence of maternal depression among new mothers
After childbirth, many women experience what’s known as the “baby blues.” You may feel like crying suddenly, have mood swings, or feel anxious. This typically happens in the first 2-3 weeks postpartum and then improves. But this isn’t the same as postpartum depression because people generally still feel hope and happiness. The baby blues go away all on their own. Postpartum depression can be diagnosed months after childbirth, lasts for a longer period of time (especially if you don’t get treatment), and involves thought patterns that can be extremely detrimental to the health of both mom and baby. It can be hard to take care of yourself or your baby when you have PPD. About 1 in 7 new moms experience postpartum depression, and these women are often prescribed medication for the condition.
Associated health risks for newborns
Untreated maternal depression can have negative effects on babies. Infants and young children whose mothers have untreated depression can show behavioral and cognitive development problems very early in life. Some of these problems include difficulties with self-regulation, difficulties paying attention, poor self-control, a tendency to withdraw, poor coping skills, and problems socializing with others.
Benefits of medication for maternal depression
For a woman with no history of psychiatric illness, talk therapy can be the first option for treating postpartum depression, but it has some limits. Talk therapy isn’t available everywhere, can have long wait times to get an appointment, can be expensive, takes a certain amount of time to produce results, and isn’t always enough treatment on its own. Other times, it’s simply not effective, and another treatment option is needed.
Antidepressants are an option with or without talk therapy. There is a wide range of medication and dosage options, and although it can take time to find the right medication, it can start working within weeks. They are also prescribed to women who don’t have PPD but do have another psychiatric illness, including bulimia, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
This means that for a lot of women who have a psychiatric illness or who won’t benefit from therapy or therapy alone, medication is a viable treatment option.
Is medication passed through breast milk? How much?
This varies depending on the medication and the dosage. There are preferred medications if you are breastfeeding that pass in lower amounts into breastmilk and have better safety profiles. .When weighed against the risk of untreated disease, use of antidepressant medications when needed in breastfeeding mothers is appropriate.
Reliable and trustworthy information about medication and breastfeeding can be found at MothertoBaby.com and Infantrisk.com. If available to you, there are mental health specialists who specifically care for pregnant and postpartum folks who will have the most current and updated information to share with you as you make decisions about treatment. To locate a mental health specialist who is trained in this area check out: https://psidirectory.com/
Depression medication while breastfeeding
Because there are so many benefits to breastfeeding, and because maternal depression has such a negative impact on infants, experts often recommend the following:
- Healthcare providers should first try to treat a woman’s depression through therapy or other methods that don’t involve medication.
- If other methods don’t prove effective, healthcare providers should analyze a woman’s personal history, family history, and other individual factors on a case-by-case basis to assess the need for depression medication.
- If the provider determines that medication is necessary, they should start with a medication that has the strongest safety profile for breastfeeding at the lowest effective dose.
- Follow-up is essential, healthcare providers will check to ensure that the medication is helping you feel better.
- Rarely is it appropriate to suggest weaning from breastfeeding because of mental health treatment if not desired by the parent. Breastfeeding has numerous health benefits for both mom and baby.
The bottom line
By looking at the number of prescriptions that breastfeeding mothers received while breastfeeding, experts determined that many women actually stop their depression medication while breastfeeding. It’s likely that they do this out of fear that they’ll harm their baby by passing the medication through their breast milk. But it’s important to know that it can be dangerous to stop some medications for mental health without guidance and support. Many patients need to be slowly weaned from medication or switched to a breastfeeding friendly option.
These results speak volumes about how committed mothers are to keeping their infants safe and to offer breastmilk benefits. But it also shows a worrisome trend in which women discontinue their postpartum depression treatment without realizing that PPD is a serious condition that can also harm an infant when left untreated. In general, the benefits of treating depression significantly outweigh potential risks associated with medication in a mother’s breast milk.
While a woman’s treatment options for depression depend very much on her own individual factors, it is often considered safer for breastfeeding women to treat their depression through medication than to ignore the condition or to stop breastfeeding. There is help, and you can feel better.
Reviewed by the Ovia Health Clinical Team
Read more
- Surprising ways breastfeeding can support your mental health
- Medication options for postpartum depression
Sources
- Katherine Stone. “Which Psychiatric Medications Are Safe During Breastfeeding?” PostpartumProgress. Postpartum Progress Inc., Oct 12 2011. Web.
- “Postpartum Depression.” ACOG. FAQ091 from American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, April 2024. Web.
- Kendall-Tackett, K. “Antidepressant use during pregnancy and breastfeeding” 4/13/2020, Infant Risk Center
