clinical depression

(Wiley-Blackwell) Pregnant women who took fluoxetine had four times as many babies with heart problems, while paroxetine caused a three-fold increase.

International researchers from Israel, Italy and Germany followed the pregnancies of 2,191 women. But they are urging women not to panic and not to stop taking their medication, pointing out that 1 in 7 women suffer clinical depression during pregnancy.

They hope that their research will help clinicians weigh the pros and cons of prescribing antidepressants during pregnancy.

Depressed heart attack patients have a higher risk for sudden death in the months following a heart attack. Now researchers have found that the risk continues for many years.

In the five years following a heart attack, 106 patients died. Of those, 62 had been diagnosed with depression, while 44 had not.

A new study suggests that antidepressants only benefit some, very severely depressed patients. "New generation" antidepressants, such as fluoxetine (Prozac) are widely prescribed for the treatment of clinical depression.

However some studies have suggested that these drugs do not help the majority of depressed people get better by very much.

Researchers looked at whether a patient's response to antidepressant therapy depends on how badly depressed they are to start out with.