SSRIs are rewiring babies’ brains — and killing their moms



The pharmaceutical industry reigns supreme over us all — including expecting mothers — and Dr. Adam Urato, a fetal and maternal medicine specialist, is gravely concerned by the lack of informed consent given to pregnant women concerning their medications.

Namely, SSRI antidepressants.

“The main one I’m focusing on currently is the use of antidepressants during pregnancy, because we’re seeing so much of that in the general population, but in particular, in pregnancy as well,” Urato tells BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey on “Relatable.”

“I tell my patients that medications are chemicals. They’re not naturally occurring substances. They’re not like oranges growing on an orange tree. They’re synthesized in a chemical manufacturing facility,” he explains, noting that in any manufacturing plant, you’ll see workers wearing masks and goggles for a reason.


“Those medications are going to cross over from the mom into the baby. A drug like Zofran has an impact on the serotonin receptors. Serotonin is a crucial cell-signaling molecule. Serotonin is crucial for fetal development.”

“So if you’ve got this delicate system, intricate system, that relies on serotonin and other neurotransmitters,” he continues, “and then you disrupt it with chemicals like Zofran or like the SSRI antidepressants or other antidepressants, it’s going to have an impact.”

While these medications are intended to help patients with what’s going on in their mind, it affects their entire body.

“There’s evidence, for example, that patients on antidepressants, on the SSRI antidepressants, have increased rates of bleeding,” he tells Stuckey, explaining that it’s because SSRIs have a huge impact on platelet function.

The drugs also have a great impact on the gut and bone strength, which leaves many SSRI patients with a higher rate of fractures in their bones and higher rates of osteoporosis. But it gets worse.

“We’re seeing increased rates of miscarriage, so the woman loses her pregnancy early. We’re seeing increased rates of birth defects. It’s been clearly shown with some of the drugs, things like heart defects,” Urato explains. “We’re seeing increased rates in preterm birth, we see increased rates in PPROM, breaking your water early, having the rupture of the membranes. We see increased rates of low birthweight babies, small for size; they didn’t grow well likely because of the impact of the drugs on the placenta late in pregnancy.”

“We see an increase in the disease called pre-eclampsia, which causes high blood pressure in women, and proteinuria, protein in the urine, we see higher rates of that in the women on the SSRIs,” he continues. “We see higher rates of postpartum hemorrhage, there’s higher rates of women bleeding who are on SSRIs.”

“Postpartum hemorrhage is one of the leading causes of maternal morbidity and mortality,” he adds.

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Drug prescribers fret as RFK Jr. investigates kids' use of amphetamines, SSRIs



The prospect the Trump administration might take action that would see multitudes of children taken off addictive, overprescribed, and potentially dangerous drugs has some childhood psychiatrists and other prongs of the pharmaceutical industry both panicking and defending select drugs.

President Donald Trump established the Make America Health Again Commission last week, tasking Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with assessing the prevalence and impact of antidepressants, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, and other pharmaceuticals on children. Trump also directed Kennedy to assess "the threat that potential overutilization of medication, certain food ingredients, certain chemicals, and certain other exposures pose to children with respect to chronic inflammation or other established mechanisms of disease."

Kennedy, the chair of the commission who initially endorsed Trump partly in hopes of helping make American children healthy again, reportedly made clear at his first meeting with HHS staff on Tuesday that he fully intends to execute the president's directive.

An employee who attended the meeting told NBC News that Kennedy signaled he would take aim at the possible overmedication of children as well as the risks of antidepressants.

Kennedy has made no secret of his desire to officially investigate the adverse and avoidable impacts that pharmaceuticals might have on children.

The HHS secretary noted, for instance, during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee that "15% of American youth are now on Adderall or some other [attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder] medication. Even higher percentages are on SSRIs and benzos. We are not just overmedicating our children, we are overmedicating our entire population. Half the pharmaceutical drugs on earth are now sold here."

A 2024 study published in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics found that between 2016 and 2022, the number of Americans ages 12 to 17 with an antidepressant prescription shot up 43%. The researchers noted further that "antidepressant dispensing to adolescents and young adults was rising before the COVID-19 outbreak and rose 63.5% faster afterward."

A 2021 study published in the medical journal JAMA Network Open found evidence of ADHD overdiagnosis and overtreatment in children and adults — especially problematic because the drugs often prescribed are amphetamines, which have numerous side effects and are highly addictive.

The health secretary added during the confirmation hearing that prescription drugs are the third-leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer, and they do not appear overall to be making America healthier.

The Trump administration's promise of investigations, transparency, and greater caution around certain drugs appears to have some prescription writers in the medical establishment worried.

'Americans have lost confidence in the medical apparatus that let us down during the COVID pandemic.'

A number of physicians and so-called psychiatric experts recently suggested to The Hill that they are more concerned that children might lose access to psychotropic drugs and other substances than they are worried about overmedication.

Lisa Fortuna, chair of the American Psychiatric Association's Council on Children, Adolescents, and their Families, said, "There is some concern, even more so in the field, that many children with depression and mental health disorders do not get access to the mental health services that they need, and that includes the comprehensive treatment that we would recommend."

Tami Benton, president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, complained to The Hill about Kennedy's previous suggestions that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors are addictive and may have something to do with school shootings — a possibility Kennedy indicated might warrant a National Institutes of Health override of medical privacy rules to verify.

Benton suggested these suggestions "don't address the reality of psychiatric treatment" and claimed that "these medications are not addictive."

The Mayo Clinic indicated that missing doses or abruptly going off SSRIs — which have various side effects including anxiety and sexual dysfunction — can cause "withdrawal-like symptoms," a consequence associated with addictive substances that are the result of the physical dependence users can often develop when taking the drugs.

When asked about its investigation into SSRIs and other drugs, White House spokesman Kush Desai told NBC News, "Americans have lost confidence in the medical apparatus that let us down during the COVID pandemic and oversaw an unprecedented explosion in chronic disease."

"The Trump-Vance administration will continue to review current best practices and health care bodies to implement needed reforms," added Desai.

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‘A baby is like a sunlamp’: Why having babies might cure depression



Feminism has undoubtedly given way to a generation of women who view giving birth as a detriment to their careers and freedom.

Dr. Catherine Pakaluk, professor of social research and economic thought, author of “Hannah’s Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth,” and mother of eight children, and Allie Beth Stuckey of “Relatable,” believe those women may be making a mistake, especially regarding their mental health.

“Do you think that childlessness is contributing to the explosion of dependance on SSRIs, especially among women? Anxiety, depression, deaths of despair. I mean, it’s women over 40 that really are taking, it seems, the lion’s share of these antidepressant, anti-anxiety medications,” Stuckey asks Pakaluk.


“I’m not an expert on the connection between those two things, but it came out of my conversations with so many people that, I think the language a lot of people used, was sort of like ‘a baby is like a sunlamp,’” Pakaluk responds.

And the women who don’t have children end up attempting to replace their desire to nurture with less fulfilling alternatives.

“They mother through politics, and sort of social justice causes, and to borrow a phrase, kind of toxic empathy,” Pakaluk says. “We are meant to have these incredible empathy muscles. I mean, this is part of being a great mom.”

“Misplaced mothering absolutely manifests itself in a lot of women who would probably call themselves liberal women, thinking that they are defending the least of these, or the most vulnerable, because they believe that whatever victim, or proclaimed victim that the media hoists up, needs their defense, needs their nurturing,” Stuckey agrees.

Pakaluk notes that these things are not as “naturally fulfilling” to women, “which leads us back to where you started this question of ‘is this fueling our anxiety, our depression.’”

“These are really big questions, but I think they’re questions we’re not asking to our peril. They’re also very awkward questions, I would say, for a country that has been committed to abortion rights,” she adds.

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Why the FBI BATTLED Tennessee media over Covenant School shooter’s manifesto



The Covenant School shooter’s manifesto has finally been released by the Tennessee Star — but it didn’t happen without a fight.

“We’re just a journalistic organization seeking documents which the public has a right to see, and at every level, the local government has obstructed those desires, as has the FBI,” Tennessee Star CEO Michael Patrick Leahy tells Jill Savage and Matthew Peterson of “Blaze News Tonight.”

“In fact, the Metro National Police Department has claimed for well over a year that the investigation is ongoing. They claimed in court in March it would be over by the end of June. Well, here we are, the beginning of September, they’re still claiming it,” he explains.

“It’s basically a stalling tactic because they don’t want this information out,” he adds.

In 2023, Leahy was hauled into court on June 17 by the presiding judge in the state case to explain why “she shouldn’t hit me with contempt of court charges.”

“She claimed that perhaps there was a court order that she’d issued that I violated. There was no such order,” Leahy explains. “It was Kafka-esque, right here in America.”

Leahy didn’t give up, as he believes it’s incredibly important for Americans to understand the motive behind a shooting like this, and Savage also notes that "the shooter's writings shed light on her poor mental health leading up to the shooting."

“This is a matter of public interest,” he says. “What is the motivation behind these mass murders committed by very troubled people, and what’s the public policy solution to it? I think that’s a very important part of the discussion.”

“We believe that we have served the public interest by demonstrating the very confused state of mind that Audrey Hale had and the absolute total failure of the mental health system to treat her for her difficulties,” he continues, noting that Hale had been under psychiatric care at Vanderbilt University Medical Center for 22 years.

“She was also taking very, very strong SSRI drugs since 2019. Those will have an impact on a person, and I think that really, the whole public discussion about this has been misdirected. They try to make it about gun control.”

The issue isn’t the weapon a person uses but why the person picks up the weapon in the first place.

“The real issue here is how our children are suffering from mental illness and not being treated properly and how they’re being overprescribed with psychiatric drugs,” Leahy says.


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