Results from a large retrospective study found that antipsychotic use during pregnancy does not significantly increase the risk of birth defects. Krista F. Huybrechts, MS, PhD and colleagues examined the association between antipsychotic (AP) use during the first trimester and the risk of congenital malformations. The study included 1,341,715 pregnancies from the nationwide Medicaid Analytic Extract database. Among those, 9,258 women (0.69%) filled a prescription for an atypical AP, and 733 women (0.05%) filled a prescription for a typical AP during the first trimester.
The risk of congenital malformations overall was 4.45% (412/9,258) of births exposed to atypical APs and 3.82% (28/733) of births exposed to typical APs. These outcomes did not show a meaningful difference when compared with the 3.27% (43,494/1,331,910) risk of births to women who did not fill a prescription for an antipsychotic. Results for cardiac malformations were similar. Risperidone was associated with the highest risk of congenital malformations, seen in 5.51% (80/1,566) births.
>> Huybrechts KF et al. JAMA Psychiatry 2016;doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2016.1520.