Women who take antipsychotic medications while pregnant may have an increased risk of developing diabetes, according to a new Swedish study.
NO LINK TO BABY SIZE
The researchers also looked at whether antipsychotic drugs were tied to differences in baby size at birth, because women with gestational diabetes may deliver bigger babies. But there was no clear link.
Babies born to mothers on the newer antipsychotic drugs were more likely to have big heads.
As for what women with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder can do to limit their risk of gestational diabetes,it varies patient to patient.
"You have to balance a lot of things.The approach, depends on what medications women need, how long they've been pregnant and which medications are linked to pregnancy-related problems.
Researchers found that out of 360,000 women who gave birth over a four-year span, about four percent of those on antipsychotic drugs developed gestational diabetes. Meanwhile, only 1.7 percent of women who weren't taking antipsychotics were diagnosed with pregnancy-related diabetes.The study, however, cannot prove the drugs caused gestational diabetes. It could be that women on antipsychotics have other traits that leave them more vulnerable to diabetes. Poor diet and lack of exercise, for example, have been tied to the condition.
"It's a very important and difficult area to study, because severe mental disorders - such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder - often require consistent medication even if a woman is pregnant. So it's very important for us to know all the possible adverse effects from the medications"
Those two drugs are newer antipsychotics and have been linked to weight gain, high cholesterol and increased insulin resistance, gestational diabetes risk would be more exaggerated for those treated with the two (newer drugs) but we were surprised we saw it for all antipsychotics.NO LINK TO BABY SIZE
The researchers also looked at whether antipsychotic drugs were tied to differences in baby size at birth, because women with gestational diabetes may deliver bigger babies. But there was no clear link.
Babies born to mothers on the newer antipsychotic drugs were more likely to have big heads.
As for what women with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder can do to limit their risk of gestational diabetes,it varies patient to patient.
"You have to balance a lot of things.The approach, depends on what medications women need, how long they've been pregnant and which medications are linked to pregnancy-related problems.
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