The number of American women taking prescription ADHD medications has more than quadrupled since 2003, according to a new report from the CDC.
Scientists are unsure whether or not ADHD medications are safe to take during pregnancy, though some research has linked them to birth defects and even fetal death in animals.
Rates of ADHD among women have been historically lower than among men, and the recent spike is ‘a public health concern given the high percentage of unintended pregnancies,’ the CDC wrote.
Increases were especially steep among women aged 25-29, who filled 700 percent more prescriptions in 2015 than they had in 2003.
According to the CDC’s chart, the vast majority of them are taking stimulant medications that may be harmful to fetuses
By 2015, four percent of American women between ages 15 and 44 filled a prescription for some form of ADHD medication.
That marked a drastic increase from the 0.9 percent of women on similar drugs in 2003.
ADHD diagnoses have been climbing steadily among children in recent years, with a 42 percent increase between 2003 and 2011, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But that trend pales in comparison to the surging rates among women, which have shot up by 344 percent in recent years.
In humans, prescribers expect side effects like changes to appetite and sleeping behavior, which vary with particular types of ADHD medications.
However, the evidence on the long-term effects of the drugs is a mixed bag.
Some research has suggested that being treated medicinally for ADHD may reduce children’s risks for addiction, other studies have found links to brain damage and lack of motivation.
What’s more, many clinical trials exclude pregnant women as complicated and high-risk subjects for study.
There are two broad categories of medications that treat ADHD: those that include stimulants (such as common grands Adderall, Vyvanse and Ritalin), and those that don’t, like Strattera.
Women filled more prescriptions for those three stimulant drugs than any others in 2015, driving the increases among prescriptions filled by women were driven by stimulant drugs by a wide margin.
Stimulants fall into a further two categories: amphetamines, like Adderall, and methylphenidates, such as Ritalin and Concerta.
A small study of pregnant women published in December found a link between methylphenidates and heart defects.
But both kinds of stimulant medications are listed by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as Category C drugs, meaning that scientists have observed ‘adverse effects on the fetus’ in animal studies, but their risks may, in some cases, be outweighed by their benefits.