raincitygirl (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
raincitygirl) wrote2012-10-28 07:59 pm
raincitygirl) wrote2012-10-28 07:59 pm
Ladies, we are walking incubators.
Just to take people's mind off of Hurricane Sandy, here's something infuriating, gakked from legionseagle, all about how women of childbearing age shouldn't be allowed to take anti-depressants. Because 50% of pregnancies are unplanned and anti-depressants harm a developing fetus, no woman who could possibly become pregnant should use these medications.
And are these words of wisdom coming from some politician in Texas? (no offense to Texans, but you produce your fair share of political loonies) No, they are coming from Professor Louise Howard, head of women's mental health at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, University of London. Note to self: if I ever move to England, I will avoid treatment at that institute like the plague. Professor Howard clearly doesn't suffer from clinical depression herself, or I doubt she'd be saying such things. Speaking as a woman of childbearing age who relies on anti-depressants to hold down a job, function in society, etc etc, I am none too thrilled.
I am well aware that anti-depressants can be dangerous for a developing fetus. In the event that I became pregnant by accident, I would probably seek out an entirely legal option that doesn't seem to have occurred to Professor Howard.
Edited to add: In comments,minim_calibre points out that this article may be a case of Daily Telegraph out-of-contextitis, going for the sensational lead and obscuring what Professor Howard was actually saying. Upon deep-breathing and then re-reading the article with deliberate calm, I think Minim may have an excellent point, and Professor Howard's advice may have been misrepresented. Or at least distorted by selective quotation. There's a whole lot much more reasonable-sounding stuff down at the very bottom of the article. Yes, I read the whole article the first time, but I was sufficiently enraged by the first few paragraphs that I didn't really consider the possibility of selective quotation. Minim also points out that the article makes no distinction between SSRIs (which are considered reasonably safe) and other drugs like lithium which are very risky.
I would certainly feel a WHOLE lot better if this were just a case of a sensationalistic journalist quote-mining, as opposed to the considered views of an expert in women's mental health.
legionseagle, all about how women of childbearing age shouldn't be allowed to take anti-depressants. Because 50% of pregnancies are unplanned and anti-depressants harm a developing fetus, no woman who could possibly become pregnant should use these medications. And are these words of wisdom coming from some politician in Texas? (no offense to Texans, but you produce your fair share of political loonies) No, they are coming from Professor Louise Howard, head of women's mental health at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, University of London. Note to self: if I ever move to England, I will avoid treatment at that institute like the plague. Professor Howard clearly doesn't suffer from clinical depression herself, or I doubt she'd be saying such things. Speaking as a woman of childbearing age who relies on anti-depressants to hold down a job, function in society, etc etc, I am none too thrilled.
I am well aware that anti-depressants can be dangerous for a developing fetus. In the event that I became pregnant by accident, I would probably seek out an entirely legal option that doesn't seem to have occurred to Professor Howard.
Edited to add: In comments,
minim_calibre points out that this article may be a case of Daily Telegraph out-of-contextitis, going for the sensational lead and obscuring what Professor Howard was actually saying. Upon deep-breathing and then re-reading the article with deliberate calm, I think Minim may have an excellent point, and Professor Howard's advice may have been misrepresented. Or at least distorted by selective quotation. There's a whole lot much more reasonable-sounding stuff down at the very bottom of the article. Yes, I read the whole article the first time, but I was sufficiently enraged by the first few paragraphs that I didn't really consider the possibility of selective quotation. Minim also points out that the article makes no distinction between SSRIs (which are considered reasonably safe) and other drugs like lithium which are very risky. I would certainly feel a WHOLE lot better if this were just a case of a sensationalistic journalist quote-mining, as opposed to the considered views of an expert in women's mental health.
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Most SSRIs under common use are considered fairly safe, so the article was more than slightly misleading, not specifying, say, that the presumed risk is entirely dependent on what drug you're talking about. Lithium, for example, is presumed risky. Everyone I've known who accidentally got pregnant while on it went for the entirely legal option of which you speak.
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Yeah, I read the article all the way through the first time around, but I was seriously, seriously pissed off by the time I got to the end of it, so I wasn't really considering that, oh hey, she sounds much more reasonable at the end, maybe she was misquoted at the beginning. Good point as well that the article makes no distinction between SSRI's like the ones I take and drugs like lithium.
Thanks! I feel somewhat better now. Although I'm still pissed off, I'm considering transferring my pissed-off-ness from Professor Howard to the Telegraph.
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Looks like a better context version of what she is saying. Which is, well, SOP for any doctor prescribing anything, especially a maintenance medication, and should be, even if they're not considering the possibility of pregnancy. Inform your patient. Make sure they know the cost/benefit analysis of any potential prescription, and what side effects to watch out for, and to inform other people around them about. (This is one of the reasons I like my brain doc. He's my age, and knows I'm a high-information patient, who has access to drug manuals intended for medical professionals. So we have very candid conversations about my treatment.)
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As a point of anecdata, it's not the best thing for one's mental health to be worrying that the drugs you're taking to keep you alive/sane/healthy are possibly having a detrimental effect on a child you're attempting to bear. So there is that.
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I based my comments on Howard's direct words in the article and discounted the headline. What she said was as follows:
That clearly supports the thrust of the article and of my complaint about it, namely that if a drug were otherwise the right one to treat the condition she would still hesitate to prescribe it to a woman of childbearing age because of the risk of unintended pregnancy, irrespective of the childbearing intentions of the woman in question.
Further, she goes on to specify sodium valprolate as a specific risk, but I understand that for the conditions for which it is prescribed it is the most therapeutically effective solution notwithstanding the birth defect risk and that not prescribing it not just to women who are or who intend pregnancy but on the basis that whatever their intentions they may become pregnant is an example of exactly the mischief complained of, namely putting the hypothetical foetus' health at a higher priority than the woman's.
She goes on to be quoted as saying
Now, while that para is open to interpretation by suggesting non-drug therapies first I also believe it's open to suppose that she's of the school who thinks taking drugs in mental illness cases is symptomatic of failure and she also seems to have been involved in research (full paper not available) which at the very least examines critically whether anti-depressants should be prescribed for post-natal depression. Anyone with access to University library facilities, her full publications list is attached. Make of it what you will.
ETA Oh, and every single article which cites Howard uses exactly the same quotes suggesting to me that they are based on a press release, not an interview. ETFA Got it! It's the Press Association
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