THE OUTCOME OF PREGNANCY IN 689 WOMEN EXPOSED TO THERAPEUTIC DOSES OFANTIDEPRESSANTS - A COLLABORATIVE STUDY OF THE UROPEAN-NETWORK-OF-TERATOLOGY-INFORMATION-SERVICES (ENTIS)

The European Network of the Teratology Information Services (ENTIS) ha s collected and evaluated data on 689 pregnancies in which exposure to tricyclic and nontricyclic antidepressants occurred, Data were collec ted prospectively from the time of in utero exposure and all the cases were followed up to the first few weeks of postnatal life using stand ardized procedures, In most cases, no longer term follow-up data were available, Approximately two-thirds of the mothers were on multidrug t herapy, and of those, half took a benzodiazepine, About 95% of the pat ients were exposed during the first trimester, The most striking featu re of the pregnancy outcomes is that 97% of live-born babies were morp hologically normal, The incidence of spontaneous abortion and late fet al/neonatal deaths were within the normal range. Fourteen live-born ba bies and one fetus had either major or minor malformations, and six ha d minor anomalies, However, there was no increase in either a particul ar type of malformation or a specific pattern of defects, Another 31 i nfants without malformations had neonatal problems; these were usually associated with chronic multidrug therapy, especially near term, Elec tive termination of pregnancy occurred more frequently in the multidru g groups (86 out of 488) than in the monotherapy groups (20 out of 201 ), but data concerning the condition of the fetus are not available in the majority of the cases, Overall, no causal relationship could be e stablished between in utero exposure to antidepressants and adverse pr egnancy outcome.