Women who use the antidepressant bupropion during early pregnancy have an increased risk of having a baby with a particular type of heart defect.
Women who use the antidepressant bupropion during early pregnancy have an increased risk of having a baby with a particular type of heart defect.
Bupropion was developed for the treatment of depression, but subsequently was found to be effective for smoking cessation. To date, there are no prospective comparative studies examining its safety in pregnancy. To determine if bupropion use in early pregnancy is associated with heart defects in infants, researchers compared the data of 6,853 infants with major heart defects with 5,869 control infants. Bupropion exposure was defined as any reported use between 1 month before and 3 months after conception.
It was found that infants whose mothers used bupropion during early pregnancy had more than double the risk of heart defects known as left outflow tract defects, compared with infants whose mothers had not used the drug. The overall risk of having a baby with some form of birth defect in any pregnancy is about three percent.
Left outflow defects affect the flow of blood from the heart's left chambers to the rest of the body. In this study, the most common type of the defect was coarctation of the aorta - a narrowing in the body's main artery that, in children, typically requires surgical repair. There were 10 cases of left outflow tract heart defects among mothers who had used bupropion. The drug was not linked to any other type of heart defect.
The study concluded that there is a positive association between early pregnancy bupropion use and left outflow tract heart defects in babies born to such mothers. Though the magnitude of this increased is small, further studies are required to confirm this finding.
Bupropion was developed for the treatment of depression, but subsequently was found to be effective for smoking cessation. To date, there are no prospective comparative studies examining its safety in pregnancy. To determine if bupropion use in early pregnancy is associated with heart defects in infants, researchers compared the data of 6,853 infants with major heart defects with 5,869 control infants. Bupropion exposure was defined as any reported use between 1 month before and 3 months after conception.
It was found that infants whose mothers used bupropion during early pregnancy had more than double the risk of heart defects known as left outflow tract defects, compared with infants whose mothers had not used the drug. The overall risk of having a baby with some form of birth defect in any pregnancy is about three percent.
Left outflow defects affect the flow of blood from the heart's left chambers to the rest of the body. In this study, the most common type of the defect was coarctation of the aorta - a narrowing in the body's main artery that, in children, typically requires surgical repair. There were 10 cases of left outflow tract heart defects among mothers who had used bupropion. The drug was not linked to any other type of heart defect.
The study concluded that there is a positive association between early pregnancy bupropion use and left outflow tract heart defects in babies born to such mothers. Though the magnitude of this increased is small, further studies are required to confirm this finding.
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