Pregnant women who are being treated with an atypical antipsychotic can enroll in a national registry that is evaluating the safety of these drugs during pregnancy, according to an announcement posted on the Massachusetts General Hospital's Center for Women's Mental Health Web site.
Women are eligible to enroll in the registry if they are pregnant and are between 18 and 45 years old and are currently being treated with one or more of the following antipsychotic medications: aripiprazole (Abilify), clozapine (Clozaril), ziprasidone (Geodon), paliperidone (Invega), risperidone (Risperdal), quetiapine (Seroquel), olanzapine (Zyprexa), and asenapine (Saphris). Once the participants have registered, they will be asked to participate in three brief phone interviews that will be conducted over an 8-month period.
The National Pregnancy Registry for Atypical Antipsychotics is collecting data to investigate the safety of atypical antipsychotics during pregnancy, when these agents are used to treat a wide range of mood, anxiety, or psychiatric disorders, according to the announcement from the hospital.
The main goal of the National Pregnancy Registry is to determine the frequency of heart defects, cleft lip, neural tube defects, and other major malformations in infants who are exposed to these medications in utero.
To register, or for more information about what participation in the registry involves, call 866-961-2388. The MGH Center for Women's Mental Health provides information on perinatal and reproductive psychiatry at www.womensmentalhealth.org