Adderall and pregnancy

No, not nosey at all. I have no problem sharing any information anyone may need as I feel it is important for other mothers to know. I was on 30mg of XR once a day and I took it everyday up until delivery and after delivery as well. I noticed no signs of withdrawal in any of my children and neither did any of the doctors. They never cried, slept well, ate well, etc. They were perfect babies.

YOU NEED TO STOP BEFORE YOU GET PREGNANT AS BY THE TIME YOU FIND OUT YOU ARE ALREADY 2 MONTHS AND THE BRIAN AND NERVOUS SYSTEMS ARE BEING MADE AND YOU COULD CAUSE BIRTH DEFECTS TO THE BRAIN

Thank you for sharing...seriously, I've been searching everywhere online trying to find some answers on this topic. I've been taking adderall for over 9 years now, my previous pregnancy I stopped cold turkey after finding out I was pregnant and It was really hard. I currently take 30 mg of adderall twice a day (and never abused it) but I know that I am addicted. My career is finally going where I'd like it to go and I just found out I am pregnant again (yesterday) I'm honestly concerned how I will make it -since I'm a single mom in Corporate America with 2 previous kids...can you please let me know if you did take it everyday (up to delivery) and how much? I'd really appreciate it....thank you again for sharing.

Yes, I did take it every day and I took 30mg of XR and 20mg of the fast acting tablets once a day. Towards the end of my pregnancy, I did wean off of the 20mg dose that I took in the afternoon. However the 30mg XR dose I continued to take every day through delivery. I completely understand where your coming from and how you are concerned about your career of you were to quit taking it. I own my own business and I was fearful of the same thing. I knew there was a "risk" as they do not know the affects for sure and there have been no studies done yet but I also couldn't risk my company falling apart and then not being able to support the children I already brought into the world. So it was weighing the pros and cons and the benefits of taking it definitely outweighed the "possible" risks. Thankfully there weren't any negative affects at all to any of my children so taking it with my 4th pregnancy has been less of a concern for me. Hope this helps.

I was on 30mg & stopped taking it as soon as I found out I was pregnant at 7 weeks....fast forward to 12 weeks & this pregnancy has been a nightmare.  I can't sleep & when I do I have nightmares, wake up exhausted & unable to complete daily tasks which would be fine except I have an 18 month old at home.  Today I was put back on my Adderall along with my Seroquel.  I have to admit Im scared, but my quality of life has been agonizing.  Will keep you updated.

Hang in there. You will be fine and so will
baby. I am 35 weeks now and have been taking it the entire time. I have NST twice
a week and an ultrasound once a week just to be safe and baby is perfect.

I just found out I'm prego with baby number two. So glad I found these posts. I was already very convinced I was going to take Adderall if I got pregnant again. During my first pregnancy, I stopped as soon as I found out (I wasn't taking it regularly like I do now...I forgot to take it once and a while...you know how it goes.) Needless to say...I gained 85 lbs during my pregnancy, had the worst sciatic pain, could hardly walk, had low blood pressure (that caused me to almost faint, more than once) etc...It was bad. I have been back on it for 2 and a half years, prescribed a 20 mg, 2xdaily (I usually only take 1 20mg in the morning, and half in the afternoon) Needless to say, I know my body, I know the baby will be physically safe. My fear is that I'm going to have a really fussy baby. To the ones that took it their whole pregnancy...did your doctor give you a hard time? Did you notice a difference with nursing? (sleeping problems, etc?)

 

As for me, my doc didn't really give me a hard time, he just said that if the benefits outweighed the risk then I could take it & it my case I felt like it did. My main concern was the baby being born addicted & having to go through withdrawals, so I stopped taking it (60 mg a day) 4 weeks before my due date, which was 3 weeks before he was born. My son weighed 7 lbs 6.5 oz at birth. I wasn't able to breastfeed because I needed to get back on my bipolar meds, but everything about him was & still is normal. He is now 9 1/2 months old & 28 lbs (chunky lil man). He's the happiest baby I've ever seen (he's my 5th) & started sleeping through the night around 3 months. I can't say Adderall is perfectly safe to take during pregnancy, I can only say that I took it just about every day up until 36 weeks during my last one, it had no effect on my child & if he wasn't my last baby I would take it with my next one. I would of course have preferred not to take anything, but my other children's & my quality of life would have greatly suffered if I didn't take it.

I found out I was pregnant during my 8th week. I am prescribed 20mg of adderall which I am suppose to take 3times a day. As soon as i found out I was pregnant then I went and had an ultrasound. Baby was perfectly fine; had all it's arms and such. I quit taking my medicine and went through withdraws for two days. I went a week later after my first ultrasound and they found that the baby no longer had a heartbeat. The fetus had grown to 8weeks & 2 days :'( I had a dnc two days later.
If you are taking adderall and decided that you are going to quit while pregnant, make sure your doctor tells you to lower your dosage instead of quitting cold turkey...

I don't think your Adderall ceasing had anything to do with the heartbeat stopping. At that early stage, the baby has just implanted, and would not have received much of what you were taking, let alone gone through any withdrawal. During the first trimester, women miscarry for all sorts of reasons - I've had many friends that lost a heartbeat in the first trimester, up through 14 weeks even (myself included, when not on Adderall) and none of them have ever even taken Adderall. Just letting you know that it was not likely related, don't see how it could have been. A miscarriage happens when there's something wrong with the fetus naturally--it's genetic. It happens while the egg is splitting, or when there's some genetic flaw, and it's nature's way of not continuing with a pregnancy that has a problem. It's a natural event. I myself quit cold turkey at 7 weeks with my first, no effect whatsoever.

Is it true Adderall can give you a false negative for a pregnancy test?  I have yet to find a reliable source to back this up, but it seems most people here who were on Adderall didn't find out they were pregnant until their fifth week or long after.  hI suspect I'm pregnant and have been slowly weaning myself off Adderall for the past few weeks (finally down to 5 mg/day and I've been taking total 60 mg/day for years), but all my pregnancy tests are still negative, including a blood test a week after my period was due.  I am so confused!  My period is never late and I'm having a lot of pregnancy symptoms.  If I was pregnant, I'd be in my 5th week (my period was due over a week ago), but so far just a bunch of negatives.

 

I believe that it is very possible that adderall could give a false negative. I have been on it for a decade. I got married in March 2012. I stopped taking BC in January 2012 b/c my prescription expired & we were just going to see what happened. I had one actual full-on period while not being on BC. Then we went to Jamaica for our honeymoon in March. I then didn't start my period. I took a pregnancy test. It was negative. I thought I was having pregnancy symptoms. I then went to OBGYN & took another test & it was negative. So they gave me pills to make me start, thinking that the cause had been b/c I had been on BC for so many years. It never happened. I then went back two weeks later & took another test & I was pregnant. I was 6 (1/2) weeks when I found out.

Thanks for your reply. Hopefully in another week or so I will get a positive result because I just "feel pregnant". After doing more research, I suspect that amphetamines like Adderall somehow slow down the production of hcg, or at least interfere with it showing up in the test (it's been documented that Adderall can temporarily slow down the growth of children with them later "catching up", so makes sense this could be the same case with a fetus?) Anyway, thanks again for your reply, as I am so sick of hearing "pregnancy tests for hcg, so Adderall wouldn't affect that" ;)

Hi,
I am not sure whether you will get this reply, as I know that it was posted 7 months ago, and your baby is probably here and keeping you very busy. Congratulations! :) I am really struggling with the issue of whether to continue with my Adderall XR (that I have been on for 14 years) with my first pregnancy (my husband and I are TTC). The psychiatrist that prescribes the medication has told me that he does not recommend I stay on it, and therefore I am not sure whether he will continue to prescribe it once he learns I am pregnant. My obgyn has left the decision up to me. I think that I am most concerned that I will get pregnant, and be miserable for 9 months AND pregnant. When I have tried to stop it in the past, it has not gone well.
My questions is: who continued to prescribe your medication? Was it your psychiatrist or another doctor? and did you have to "fight" for them to do it? Or sign anything saying that you would not blame them if there were complications?
Thanks so much for your insight and for sharing your story.

No complications. Son was delivered at 38 weeks 1 day and weighed 8lb 2oz and was 20in long. My OBGYN who was a maternal fetal specialist prescribed it during my pregnancy because my usual doctor was more comfortable with that seeing as he knew more about it. I never had to sign anything saying I wouldn't blame anyone. Nothing like that. My son is perfect, as were my other 3 kids. In my personal opinion from my own life experience having 4 healthy children, adderall is safe during pregnancy or at least it was safe with me when I took it. Hope this helps.