Welbutrin’s affect on pregnancy and fetus?
Friday, February 26th, 2010 at
8:38 am
Dr. Prescibed this for me about a month ago, but I wansn’t taking it because I just didn’t feel comfortable. Depression got to point where I was crying nonstop at work in front of people. I’m 20wks and have only been taking it for a week now, just started 300mg. Has any had EXPERIENCE or actually seen effects of this drug during pregnancy or on baby once born?
Tagged with: Affect • fetus • pregnancy • Welbutrin's
Filed under: Depression during Pregnancy Effects on Baby
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if your doctor prescribed it DURING pregnancy, then it should be safe. if your not comfortable with taking it, talk to your doc about it, there might be something else he can try.
Wellbutrin (bupropion) is rated FDA Pregnancy Risk category B (Controlled studies done on animals in reproduction do not indicate risk to the fetus. No adequate and well-controlled studies done on pregnant women.)
- An increase in congenital defects was reported without fetotoxicity in animals.
- Limited human data has been reported, its use in the 1st trimester was documented to be without teratogenic effects.
Bupropion (Wellbutrin ®, Zyban ®)
Reproduction studies have been performed in rabbits and rats at doses up to 15 to 45 times the human daily dose and have revealed no definitive evidence of impaired fertility or harm to the fetus due to bupropion. (In rabbits, a slightly increased incidence of fetal abnormalities was seen in 2 studies, but there was no increase in any specific abnormality).”
As of February 2003, 764 pregnancies involving exposure to bupropion had been prospectively registered with The Glaxo Wellcome Bupropion Pregnancy Registry. As of June 2003, 154 pregnancies were pending delivery, 213 cases were lost to follow up, and 397 cases with 401 outcomes were obtained. The indications for use of bupropion in the latter were depression in 251 patients, smoking cessation in 95 patients, depression and smoking cessation in 16 patients, bipolar affective disorder in one patient, and unspecified in 34 patients.
Of 322 outcomes involving bupropion exposure in the first trimester there were 261 live births without birth defects, 40 spontaneous pregnancy losses, 11 induced abortions, 1 induced abortion with evidence of Down syndrome on prenatal testing, and 9 infants born alive with birth defects.
The defects in infants born alive included one infant with bilateral club feet, one infant with Klinefelter’s syndrome (no physical abnormalities), and 7 infants with heart defects (1 abnormal aortic valve thickening with mild aortic insufficiency, 1 ventricular septal defect, 1 trivial pulmonic stenosis with atrial septal defect, 1 coarctation with ventricular septal defect, 1 thickened heart muscle, 1 pulmonary stenosis, and 1 coarctation of the aorta).
The observed proportion of birth defects in pregnancies with prenatal exposure to bupropion in the first trimester was 3.7%.
http://www.perinatology.com/exposures/Drugs/Bupropion.htm