Phototherapy improve depressive symptoms in pregnant women, suggests a study of 27 women in Switzerland. Although the study is small, the results are encouraging for physicians who rejected the use of antidepressants that may harm the fetus.
On the other hand, is the fear that untreated depression may cause complications during childbirth, said C. Neill Epperson, by the Penn Center for Women's Welfare in Philadelphia, and did not participate in the study.
One in 10 pregnant women are depressed, the authors in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, and that puts you at risk of having a premature or low birth weight.
Phototherapy is effective in people with seasonal affective disorder become depressed in winter, but it would be in depressed people in general. To check whether this would extend to pregnant women, the team of Anna Wirz-Justice, University Hospital Basel, Switzerland, randomly administered to 46 women with depression treatment with bright fluorescent light or red light without therapeutic effects (placebo) .
The women sat under the light for one hour per day, after waking up. The study lasted five weeks, during which the authors assessed the status of the participants. Nineteen participants discontinued treatment during the investigation or are excluded from the final analysis because they started taking antidepressants, which reduced the study group 27 women.
At five weeks, the symptoms had decreased by 50 percent in 13 of 16 participants treated with phototherapy and 11 and without depression, as opposed to 11 and four women, respectively, in the control group.
phototherapy had no adverse effect. "It's like walking an hour a day," said Wirz-Justice, but without the risks of ultraviolet (UV). The expert opined that the treatment could be used throughout pregnancy and after childbirth, a period in which depression is very common. According to Wirz-Justice, the response to phototherapy was as good as antidepressants for the light works in the same brain pathways that drug. For Epperson, phototherapy and other non-pharmacological treatments "have their complications (...) One must be very motivated to do phototherapy.
However, "physicians will feel much better to use strategies (no drug) that can help their patients. And by the way, phototherapy is a very reasonable option," he added.
Source
Journal of Clinical Psychiatry
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