Atypical Antipsychotic Drugs During Pregnancy. Their Effects on the Mother and Offspring

Risk-benefit analysis of medication used for psychiatric disorders is in general a challenge for medical doctors and a detailed analysis is required, which takes into account the age of the patient. Furthermore, it is even more difficult to find a suitable treatment for women who are planning to or become pregnant, because in this case it is also necessary to evaluate the potential risks of the drugs on the offspring, since some of them can pass the placental membranes reaching the fetal circulation. Atypical antipsychotic drugs including risperidone, quetiapine, clozapine and olanzapine are commonly used in patients with schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders, but there are few studies of their effects during pregnancy. This is a subject which merits further investigation, especially taking into account that this group of drugs reaches in higher concentration values in fetal blood than in the maternal circulation. In this article we review the literature related to the effects of atypical antipsychotics during pregnancy and the neonatal period, focusing both on the mother and the fetus.