Antidepressant use increases the risk for miscarriage

Pregnant women who are taking antidepressants are at a 68% greater risk for miscarriage than women not taking the drugs, a nested, case-control study from Quebec reports.

Researchers included data on 5,124 women who had had clinically verified miscarriages up to 20 weeks' gestation and a large sample of women who had not miscarried. Of those who miscarried, 5.5% had taken at least 1 antidepressant during the pregnancy versus 2.7% of those who did not.

Use of a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor increased the risk by about 61% (odds ratio [OR]. 1.61; 95% CI, 1.28-2.04). Serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors more than doubled the risk (OR, 2.11; 95% CI, 1.34-3.30). Further, combined use of more than 1 antidepressant from different classes more than tripled the risk (OR, 3.51; 95% CI 2.20-5.61). The risk of miscarriage associated with use of these categories of antidepressants was significantly higher than with solo therapy with tricyclic antidepressants or other classes of antidepressants (adjusted OR, 1.27-1.53; P<.05).