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Traci Pedersen

Taking antidepressants during pregnancy is linked to a greater risk of developing gestational diabetes, according to a new Canadian study published in the online journal BMJ Open.

Gestational diabetes is a type of diabetes that develops during pregnancy. It affects one in five pregnant women worldwide. Like other types of diabetes, gestational diabetes affects how your cells use sugar (glucose).

These pregnancies are prone to complications, such as overweight babies and prolonged labor due to the baby getting stuck in the birth canal. The children of these pregnancies may also be more vulnerable to obesity and diabetes later on, while the moms are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

The researchers found that risk was highest among women who were taking venlafaxine, a serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI) that goes by the brand name Effexor, and amitriptyline (Elavil), which belongs to an older class of antidepressant, known as tricyclics.

For the study, the researchers drew on information from the Quebec Pregnancy Cohort, which incorporates three Canadian databases, and includes all pregnancies and children born in Quebec between 1998 and 2015.

Each case of gestational diabetes (20,905), identified after 20 weeks of pregnancy, was randomly matched with 10 unaffected pregnancies (209,050) of the same age and calendar year of delivery.

Antidepressant use was assessed using information on prescriptions filled for these drugs between the start of pregnancy and the diagnosis of gestational diabetes. In all, 9,741 (just over 4%) of the moms took antidepressants, singly or combined.

These included citalopram, fluoxetine, fluvoxamine, paroxetine and sertraline, all of which are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs for short; venlafaxine; and amitriptyline- BMJ/ Psych Central.