Bipolar disorder during Pregnancy
Bipolar
disorder or manic-depressive disorder is one of the most serious and one of the
most difficult mental health conditions to treat. Bipolar disorder is related
to the mood of a person. In this people have significant changes in their mood
ranging from manic high to depressive low episodes. Bipolar disorder can make people
reluctant to any major life changes, including pregnancy. BD does make
pregnancy difficult but it doesn’t make it impossible. So, if you have had
bipolar disorder or do have bipolar disorder, you should discuss all your
options with your partner and doctor.
Your
doctor will look at your overall well-being by considering:
1. How
to manage your bipolar disorder?
2. What
medications you are taking and what changes to make?
3. How
severe are your symptoms?
4. How
will your mental health illness affect your baby?
Effects of pregnancy on mental
health
Pregnancy
involves hormonal changes that can give you mood changes. Some days, you might
feel extremely happy and on top of the world. On other days, you might feel
down in dumps and sad. Bipolar Disorder symptoms can become more conspicuous during
pregnancy. And, this is also true with other mental health issues. Pregnancy
can alter women’s moods and the risk of mood swings is greater if bipolar
disorder is left untreated during pregnancy.
How to manage bipolar
disorder during pregnancy?
Pregnant
women should take the help of mental health professionals if they have bipolar
disorder. While treating bipolar disorder in pregnant women and developing foetus,
usually the biggest concerns are medications you are already taking to manage
your mental health condition. To treat your bipolar disorder, you might be
taking mood stabilizers, such as divalproex-sodium or
lithium, which might harm a developing foetus.
How
they affect the foetuses is not relatively known. One recent study published
in New England journal concluded that
lithium when taken during the first trimester, may increase the risk for
cardiac faults in foetuses.
It has also been noticed that valproate
if taken during pregnancy may increase the risk for neurological defects in
infants. And, it has also been noticed that in many cases, the neurological defects
seemed to resolve in the 1st year of the birth. From all these
studies it can be concluded that bipolar
disorder medications can impact the development of a foetus. Other
medications may also be harmful to the foetus during the treatment of the bipolar
disorder. Some of these medications are:
·
anti-anxiety drugs
·
antidepressants
·
antipsychotics
To prevent any harm to your baby and to
avoid any pregnancy complications you must tell your OBGYN about all the
medications you take for bipolar disorder. Only then your doctor and your obstetrician
will decide on the best course of treatment for you and might decide against
the medications during pregnancy. This might lead you to rely on other forms of
treatment for bipolar disorder, like self-care
and psychotherapy. However, continuing the treatment of bipolar disorder during
pregnancy may decrease the chances of relapse. Whether to continue the medications
or not will be decided by your medical team and they will help you weigh the
benefits and the risks of stopping your medications during pregnancy.
Effects of mood disorders on foetuses
Professionals do not
clearly know how and how much bipolar disorder can affect fetal development. As
bipolar disorder is genetic it can be that you may pass the bipolar
disorder to your child, but this isn’t an immediate concern during pregnancy.
Scientists are still researching the genetic relationship to bipolar disorder.
But if the bipolar
disorder is left untreated it can lead to a number of health problems in the baby
such as:
· Low
birth weight
· Underdevelopment
of brain
· Poor
prenatal care
· Poor
nutrition
Postpartum and Bipolar Disorder
Bipolar disorder may not only affect
women during pregnancy but it can also harm the mother and baby after the
pregnancy. There are some risks involved for a mother and her baby’s well-being
immediately after labor. Bipolar disorder may increase your chances of
postpartum depression. But be careful not to confuse your symptoms with postpartum
depression, which is one of the common mental health conditions experienced
by many women after having a baby. You can get postpartum depression even if
you do not have bipolar disorder.
Postpartum depression is a rare, but
serious mental health condition that requires immediate attention and
treatment. You can see the postpartum depression in about 1 in 1,000 women. Its symptoms include:
·
Mother experiencing depression which usually
starts from two to three days after delivery.
·
Women may also experience hallucinations and
delusions. This can prove to be extremely dangerous for both mother and baby.
Breastfeeding can also be challenging
for new mothers suffering from bipolar disorder. If you are taking certain
medications there’s a concern about them being transmitted from the mother to
her baby via breast milk. While antidepressants don’t seem to have these risks
but antipsychotics drugs can be dangerous. And, breastfeeding a new born can disrupt
your sleep, which is important in treating and preventing bipolar relapse.
Treatment for bipolar disorder
For pregnant women, the treatment for
bipolar disorder can be tricky, as the medications affect the baby too. Talking
and discussing about your treatment plan with a doctor and mental health
professional can help you in finding the right treatment. It is imperative to find
the right treatment plan. Some of the treatment plans can be:
- You can try electroconvulsive
therapy
- Exercise
regularly to naturally boost serotonin
in your body i.e., the “feel-good” hormone
- Talking with a therapist or group can help
- Cognitive-behavioural
therapy can also be helpful
- Support groups with people with a similar mental
health problem.
- Eat food that has omega-3
fatty acids, like flaxseed plus eat a couple of
servings of low-mercury fish in a week.
- Include more plant-based
foods in your diet.
How to Plan Ahead?
If you have bipolar
disorder and are planning to have a baby then plan your pregnancy ahead of time
with some help from your doctor. This will help you in making it easier for you
to develop a plan that will help you in keeping your baby safe. The plan can
include:
- switching medications that are not harmful to the
baby
- deciding against the medications altogether
- start taking nutritional supplements before
conceiving
- take adequate self-care measures, such as adequate
sleep and rest
To have a complication free pregnancy
there are numerous things to be taken into consideration in any pregnancy.
With bipolar disorder, you can have a safe pregnancy but for this to happen you
should try and plan ahead as much as possible.
References: https://www.healthline.com/health/bipolar-disorder/bipolar-pregnancy#bd-and-pregnancy