Is Zoloft safe during pregnancy?

What does the evidence say about Zoloft during pregnancy?

1. Most studies of sertraline in pregnancy show no rise in birth defects, and when researchers compare only people who have depression, the rates look similar with and without the medication. 1
2. Newborn symptoms after late-pregnancy SSRI exposure are usually mild and fade on their own within a couple of weeks, and the overall chance of persistent pulmonary hypertension stays under 1 in 100. 1
3. Cardiac defect risk did not rise across 949,504 pregnancies once depression severity was accounted for, landing at a relative risk of 1.06 for any heart defect, with no link found between sertraline and ventricular septal defects. 2
4. Sertraline was the most commonly reported SSRI in a Bayesian analysis covering nearly 28,000 mothers, and none of the five birth defect associations previously published for it were confirmed. 3
5. Depression affects about 1 in 10 pregnant people, and symptoms can return if an antidepressant taken before pregnancy is stopped. 4

Is Zoloft safe in each trimester?

• First trimester. The first trimester draws the most attention because this is when the heart and other organs form. In a cohort of 949,504 pregnancies, the apparent link between antidepressants and heart defects faded once researchers accounted for depression itself, and sertraline specifically was not tied to ventricular septal defects.
• Second trimester. Second-trimester exposure is studied less than early exposure, mostly because research attention follows organ formation. This is often the stretch where someone who paused their medication early notices symptoms creeping back. Your obstetric and mental health clinicians can look at how you are actually doing and whether the dose still fits.
• Third trimester. Babies exposed to an SSRI close to delivery can be jittery, sleepy, or slow to feed for a few days. MotherToBaby describes these signs as usually mild and self-resolving within a couple of weeks. Tell your delivery team what you take so nobody is surprised.