Hi,

Since so many of you are experts on medication,, was wondering if there is any relation between ritalin and mc? I mean in the first three weeks or so when you do not know if you are preganant? should women not be on ritalin if they are attempting to get pregnant?

I am posting this in general info because i wanted to hear the collective wisdom.


thanks

goingfor it

Not sure about miscarriage, but one thing you WANT to be observant of is a possible appitite decline. Be very observant and focus if it is occuring while on the meds.

There is always the potential of stimulant adhd meds supressing to a certain degree a pregnant mothers INCREASED natural appetite, but if it was it would not be good for the fetus.

As you know adhd meds can effect appitite, for me for most of my life i was on RITALIN and they did, particularity and most signifigantly when i was in elementary school, i would skip entire meals.

Stimulants are the primary dietary drug in the weightloss industry. They reduce appitite.

It would be hard to gauge though if it is and to what extent if it is. Appitie suppressant qualities vary from person to person, body weight matters, the type of drug matters as does the amount of the specific drug. Unless you had another child and could compare the impact.

Then again later in the stages of pregnacy male babies in the womb consume more nutrients then females as they are larger and weigh more.

I would air on the side of caution. Not take it if possible.

There were some articles on regular use of caffeine increasing the risk of miscarriage. And caffeine as you know is a stimulant.

It would be hard to gauge appitite suppressant qualities, because your appite naturally goes way up when you are pregnant.

Lets say 6 months into pregancy your appitite has gone up 40% (this is just a made up number), and the ritalin decreases it 10%, how exactly would you know that you had a decreased appitite unless you were pregnat once before and had some means of gauging or comparing.

I mean when your appitite goes up by 30% you think to yourself "yeah I'm eating more". But who knows, maybe if you weren't on the meds you'd be eating even more.

Various stimulants increase the risk of miscarriage:

Caffeine
1 study - Caffeine doubles miscarriage risk, study find

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080121/caffeine_miscarriage_080121?s_name=&no_ads=
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2008/01/21/caffeine.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/01/21/hfh.caffeine.miscarriage/index.html


in general we may be looking at regular usage of any strong stimulant increasing miscarriage. It may be that decrease in appetite is one of the contributing factors in the increased rates, since malnutrition will increase rates:

http://www.americanpregnancy.org/pregnancycomplications/miscarriage.html

The pharmaceutical companies have been known to be slow at declaring side effects for variouis drugs. New side effects seem to be discovered routinely.

I believe the advice is that stimulant medication shouldn't be taken whilst pregnant: it passes through to the baby. It's also passed through breast milk too.

Do also remember that miscarriage is not an abnormal event. 20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriages. That's 1 in 5.

in my opinion, experts are the docs and pharmacologists. These forums every member is here for support - suggestions and advice - not as experts. Questions like these should be asked to your doc to get the best possible answers.

thanks everybody for the answers.

About the last answer, hmm, what the doctors say is that there is no evidence. This does not mean that it is safe, simply that there has not been any studies done on it. My doctor says not to be paranoid.