Prescription Drugs as Birth Control

June 8th, 2010. By Hunter West

Can a medication designed to minimize epileptic seizures, serve as birth control? 

Can an antidepressant, also serve as birth control? 

Indirectly, yes—if women who depend on various drugs to stabilize their lives opt to shun having children rather than risk the possibility of birth defects. 

It’s an interesting conundrum—that a society that depends more and more on various drugs to treat our diseases and keep us living longer, might suffer a detrimental effect on birth rates and experience a shrinkage of the population. 

But while the long-term effect may be less dramatic, the short-term debate is no less real. 

There are various drugs that are designed to treat specific conditions, such as valproate for the treatment of bipolar disorder, or migraine headaches. While the drug, marketed as Depakote, is without doubt effective for the treatment for that for which it was intended, it can also have a devastating effect on a fetus if taken by an expectant mother. 

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) noted in December of last year, “Valproate use during early pregnancy increases the risk of major malformations in the baby,” the FDA said. “The rates for neural tube defects in babies exposed to valproate during the first trimester are 30 to 80 times higher than the rate for neural tube defects in the general US population. In pregnant women with epilepsy, valproate monotherapy is associated with a four-fold higher rate of major malformations than other antiepileptic drug monotherapies. 

“Healthcare professionals should counsel women of childbearing potential taking valproate about the increased risk of major malformations…” 

A far more common drug is the SSRI antidepressant. Critics of antidepressants and the doctors who prescribe them, say that antidepressants are over-prescribed. While there is little doubt many individuals would not be able to get through the day without potentially doing harm to themselves without the intervention of antidepressants, the fact remains that some doctors have been known to prescribe an antidepressant for having one too many bad days. 

That’s likely an over-simplification, but you get the idea. Society is prescribed drugs when we need them, and sometimes when we do not—but they are sometimes given as a matter of convenience, rather than for real need. 

With doctors having the legal, medical and moral power to prescribe drugs off-label for events they were never designed or approved for but may, in the doctor’s view carry some benefit for the patient, pharmaceutical drug use just keeps growing—with more drugs under development and more in the pipeline for approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 

Where, then, does that leave the expectant mother who wants nothing more than to have a healthy baby, free from birth defects and other health issues that could affect that just-born individual for the rest of his, or her life? 

There are things a mother-to-be can do that are within her control (hopefully) before she becomes pregnant. Quit drinking, and stop smoking for starters. Avoid taking any medication of any kind, unless the situation is grievous. 

But what if you take an antidepressant and have come to rely on it? Depending on the severity of your depression, your doctor may recommend that you don’t stop taking it. Even lessening the dose could prove a risk to the mother. 

Maintain an SSRI antidepressant, and you risk harming the baby. But stopping an SSRI antidepressant could leave the expectant mother in an agitated state. Research has shown THAT’S not good for the baby either. It seems that the baby is a direct product of the environment in which the fetus grows and develops. Where there is ample and quality nutrition, a calmed mother and an absence of unnatural chemicals (drugs—but with the possible exception of folic acid), the baby stands an excellent chance of developing, as it should. 

However, when the opposite is true, anything is possible. 

For many of these drugs, such as valproate, the risk is highest within the first trimester—which is often well on its way before the woman even suspects she is pregnant. 

One of the saddest aspects of life is when a woman yearns to have children and, for whatever reason, can’t. For some, it could be a physiological deficit preventing conception. 

Others decide against having children for financial reasons, or perhaps dislike the world so much they shudder at the thought of bringing children into it. 

However, one wonders if women are also deciding against having children because of the drugs they are prescribed to get through their day—drugs they can’t imagine going through life without. That’s a snapshot that includes a growing number of people. 

Rather than risk harming a child for life, they decide not to have any. 

Thus, drugs may be helping to keep us alive. But they may be killing the natural turnover in the population.

Tags: Antidepressants, depakote, SSRI, valproate

This was posted on Tuesday, June 8th, 2010 at 3:06 pm and is filed under Drugs/Medical . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.