If it makes you feel better my sister did not know she was preggo until three months and she smoked cigarrets and drank hard liqour and smoked marijuana until she found out. Her little boy is three now and perfectly fine. I am sure everything will be okay. Congrats! :)
My OB-GYN actually rx'd me low-dose klonopin, which is category D, which i believe xanax is as well. She said i could take it up to 3x a day, but i'm paranoid and am only taking them when i get really really bad, so not even everyday. (LOTS of deep breathing and tricking myself into not worrying. Not easy. But i feel better taking as little as possible.)
As long as the doctor knows what's going on you should be ok.
It really doesn't carry the risk of severe birth defects - it's a Category C drug, meaning that the risk can't be effectively evaluated. It's the same as Phenergan, and marijuana.
Category C means:
No adequate studies in animals or people have been done.
OR
In animal studies, use of the drug resulted in harm to the fetus, but no information about how the drug affects the human fetus is available.
I was taking a mood stabilizer and anti-depressant passed the 5th week, into the 7th I think? I had always read the warning of the specific one I was taking and heard from my doctor that I should quit taking it a bit before I conceived, even. It was a surprise though, and baby is fine in there as far as we can tell. I'll let you know in about 2 weeks once she's out ;).
Because there is nothing you can do about it now, and because you stopped quite early, I wouldn't spend any energy worrying about it. The placenta isn't even functioning right away, so it's entirely possible (rather, probable) that it didn't affect the embryo at all. So long as you don't continue to take it, you should be just fine.
Now, to address your anxiety issues, have you considered Paxil? It's something you would take daily, to mitigate your anxiety, and it's much safer than benzodiazapenes.
I didn't know I was pregnant for two months, smoking cigarettes and getting blackout drunk on one occasion. Don't beat yourself up over it -- you didn't know.
All SSRIs are linked to a small risk of PPHN (Primary Pulmonary Hypertension of the Newborn,) but I had been mistakenly thinking that Paxil was the safest.
Not in this pregnancy but in my prior, I was taking 1-2 mg of xanax a day. Since I'd been on it for nearly a year, my doc slowly weaned me off of it over a 2 week period. By week 6, I was Xanie-free and my daughter is more "perfect" than my older child.
Seriously, I wouldn't worry about it but cut it out ASAP. If you really need something for anxiety, I'm sure your doc can find an alternative. I take a low dose of a slight anxiety med now. I wish I didn't have to take it but when you suffer from an anxiety disorder, the benefits outweigh the consequences.
Re: My 2 cents.royal_penguinJanuary 31 2010, 21:53:14 UTC
Wow, your experience is definitely very positive! Sounds like you took a whole lot more Xanax than I did and your baby still turned out fine. That calms me down quite a bit. I'm only really worried about ONE dose, about 0.75mg which I took in three 0.25mg increments one night some time in the very beginning on the 5th week. I was never on Xanax on any regular basis, in fact I believe that this one night was the only time in my pregnancy that I took it... So the overall amount of Xanax I ate during pregnancy is less than 1mg.
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As long as the doctor knows what's going on you should be ok.
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Category C means:
No adequate studies in animals or people have been done.
OR
In animal studies, use of the drug resulted in harm to the fetus, but no information about how the drug affects the human fetus is available.
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(The comment has been removed)
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Now, to address your anxiety issues, have you considered Paxil? It's something you would take daily, to mitigate your anxiety, and it's much safer than benzodiazapenes.
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I didn't know I was pregnant for two months, smoking cigarettes and getting blackout drunk on one occasion. Don't beat yourself up over it -- you didn't know.
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All SSRIs are linked to a small risk of PPHN (Primary Pulmonary Hypertension of the Newborn,) but I had been mistakenly thinking that Paxil was the safest.
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Seriously, I wouldn't worry about it but cut it out ASAP. If you really need something for anxiety, I'm sure your doc can find an alternative. I take a low dose of a slight anxiety med now. I wish I didn't have to take it but when you suffer from an anxiety disorder, the benefits outweigh the consequences.
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I'm only really worried about ONE dose, about 0.75mg which I took in three 0.25mg increments one night some time in the very beginning on the 5th week. I was never on Xanax on any regular basis, in fact I believe that this one night was the only time in my pregnancy that I took it... So the overall amount of Xanax I ate during pregnancy is less than 1mg.
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