Reuters (6/7, Emery) reports on a study finding that women taking lithium for bipolar disorders during their first trimester of pregnancy are not as much at risk of having a child with a heart malformation as once believed. The article reports, “In the analysis of 1.3 million pregnancies, the overall rate of heart malformation in the babies of women treated with lithium was 2.41 percent versus 1.15 percent for women not exposed to the drug, representing a relative risk increase of 65 percent for babies of mothers taking the drug.” However this risk is “a much more modest risk in cardiac effects” than once believed. The findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
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— “Risk of heart defect in babies of women on lithium is less than thought,”Gene Emery, Reuters, June 07, 2017.