Women taking antidepressants during their reproductive stage have to think twice before taking prescribed medications. According to a report issued by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 15% of women in their reproductive years take antidepressants; this could lead to rare birth defects in the heart, brain and other organs of children born to them. The CDC recommends doctors to screen pregnant women, new mothers as well as all adults for depression.

Depression is a common psychological disease that affects about 30% of women between 18 and 44 years of age and if it is not treated, patients can suffer from more mental health problems and risk of heart disease and other conditions. Similar defects could be found in children born to such mothers.

What makes the problem more serious is that in the US alone about half the pregnancies are unplanned. So women taking antidepressants may not even realize they are pregnant for the first few weeks.

“Early pregnancy is time that is critical for baby's development and because so many women may be taking medications without knowing they are pregnant, we wanted to get a better sense of trends of antidepressant use of all women of reproductive age,” said Jennifer N. Lind, epidemiologist in the CDC's Birth Defects Branch and co-author of the report that was released on Thursday.

Most common antidepressants prescribed to almost all women on the study were Zoloft (sertraline) and Wellbutrin (bupropion). The most common among women between 25 and 34 were Zoloft and Oleptro (trazodone). Siobhan Dolan, medical adviser to the March of Dimes and an obstetrician and geneticist at Montefiore Medical Center in New York believes that women in their reproductive age should consult their doctors for best treatment option for their mental illness, which will not have any side effects.

A study published in 2015 found that many SSRI antidepressant medications, including Zoloft (sertraline) were not associated with birth defects. However, Paxil (paroxetine) and Prozac (fluoxetine) in early pregnancy were associated with small increases in the risk of babies being born with heart and neurological defects.