by Claudia Boyd-Barrett posted in Pregnancy

If you?re pregnant and suffer from a panic or anxiety disorder, scientists at Yale University say you don?t need to worry about the condition affecting your baby.
Women with panic or generalized anxiety disorders were no more likely to give birth prematurely, need a C-section, have low birth-weight babies or babies who needed extra oxygen after birth than women who didn?t have these disorders, according to the results of a study published this month in JAMA Psychiatry.
The researchers studied more than 2,600 women at 137 doctor?s offices in Connecticut and Massachusetts through pregnancy and after childbirth. About 250 women had generalized anxiety disorder, and 98 had panic disorder.
After accounting for other risk factors such as smoking or heavy drinking, the chances of birth complications were the same for these women as for other moms, the researchers concluded after reviewing medical records.  
Taking benzodiazepines or antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or SSRIs (such as Zoloft or Paxil) for panic and anxiety disorders did appear to pose a slight to moderate risk to moms and babies, however, the authors reported.
Women who took benzodiazepines during pregnancy were more likely to need a C-section than women who didn?t take those drugs, and their babies were about 6 percent more likely to need respiratory support after birth. Their pregnancies were about 3.6 days shorter on average than ot...