I am making this post here in Symptoms so anyone in the future who has concerns over pregnancy or having children can discuss here.

We can discuss

Being pregnant while on drugs
Tapering while pregnant
Becoming pregnant after drugs

I am drug free, my point of discussion I'd like to bring up is the safety of having children and passing unwanted traits to them. PAWS can cause epigenetic changes. Even after you fully recover those changes might last. Thoughts? I would love some reassurance that if I am fully recovered and it's been a few years, I can get pregnant and the child will not have anything wrong with them. 🥲

Edited February 24Feb 24 by wheretogonow

12 hours ago, wheretogonow said:

I am making this post here in Symptoms so anyone in the future who has concerns over pregnancy or having children can discuss here.

We can discuss

Being pregnant while on drugs
Tapering while pregnant
Becoming pregnant after drugs

I am drug free, my point of discussion I'd like to bring up is the safety of having children and passing unwanted traits to them. PAWS can cause epigenetic changes. Even after you fully recover those changes might last. Thoughts? I would love some reassurance that if I am fully recovered and it's been a few years, I can get pregnant and the child will not have anything wrong with them. 🥲

Thanks @wheretogonow Sounds like a good idea for a thread. Can I ask you to make an introduction for yourself please when you get a minute? Thanks 🙂 

My concerns are:

1. Due to epigenetic changes that might not fully reverse or reset during fertilization, will the child be more likely to get things like PSSD, PAWS, PFS, long covid in the future?
2. Could prolonged nervous system stress or withdrawal create epigenetic changes in eggs that might make a child more susceptible to emotional blunting or reward system issues?

I'm asking Dr Horrowitz in today's Q&A, if I get a good answer I'll share here

Didn't really get an answer, he spoke moreso about dangers of taking it during WD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Iwpb8pMFhY

Maybe this is a sign that I'm overthinking this, trust the pssd forums to instill doubt.
Still if anyone can give me reassurance I would much appreciate it. 

Again I'm off all drugs and would only get pregnant like 4 years from now, and only if I'm fully healed.

I'm 28 and a year into my tapering journey, so this is on my mind. 

 

I think it's really hard not to have a scary thought like this & be in a cycle of ruminating over it and attempting to seek answers. Living with that kind of uncertainty can feel intolerable.

 

I am sure studies will come to exist & more people will come forward with their stories, but for now it may be a case of accepting we can't know the answer to everything and sitting with the uncertainty, as painful as it can be. Of course, if you do find studies and answers then that is great. But if you can't, try to be gentle with yourself and the part of you that is seeking this reassurance.

 

You may be able to find anecdotal accounts from individuals, but remember there can be a lot of unhelpful information, incomplete stories and fear mongering on forums, as helpful as they can be. Plus, a hypervigilant, anxious mind can read a fairly positive story and only take negatives from it - I know I do this when I read 'success stories' and come away feeling depressed and hopeless.

 

Remember, you want to get pregnant in 4 years, not now - so, so much will have shifted and changed by that point. It might not even be something you fear when you're feeling better in yourself.

On 2/24/2026 at 8:08 PM, wheretogonow said:

PAWS can cause epigenetic changes. Even after you fully recover those changes might last.

 

Do you have any evidence for this?

 

Could you succinctly define what this means in this context?

 

 

It's just disappointing since I felt 80% healed Sep - Dec ... I forgot abt withdrawl. To be back in this is so painful. I hope this just means my body is healing the rest of the 20%

IT's prob not the hair it's prob just a non-linear healing pattern, just can't believe this bad feelings

It's great to see some discussion on this topic here.

 

I stopped my medication nine months ago and I'm experiencing waves and windows. I'm getting married in June, and initially, we planned to start trying for a baby right after.

 

Now however, I'm not entirely sure about it, because my state doesn't feel quite as stable as I'd want it to be. That said, three months is plenty of time for things to change (and hopefully improve). My concerns aren't so much about the potential impact on the baby, but more about how I would handle things if pregnancy brought additional symptoms or I ended up feeling very bad even when the baby is born. My feelings fluctuate; when I'm feeling better, I think that of course I'll get pregnant but on bad days I wonder what I was even thinking...😩

 

I personally avoid reading too much about this topic because it's such a personal dream for me that coming across bad experiences would be very triggering for me. So I've stayed away from reading too much, since no one can predict how pregnancy will go for any individual. There's no point in making assumptions. That said, I did randomly stumble upon a couple of comments in SA where people mentioned their pregnancies went well, even while dealing with withdrawal 🙂 

 

So to summarize, I'm trying to take things slowly and not stress myself too much. I'm 28 years old and would prefer to get pregnant (if possible ofc) before turning 30, but we'll see how things go 🙂 

On 2/24/2026 at 12:08 PM, wheretogonow said:

I am making this post here in Symptoms so anyone in the future who has concerns over pregnancy or having children can discuss here.

We can discuss

Being pregnant while on drugs
Tapering while pregnant
Becoming pregnant after drugs

I am drug free, my point of discussion I'd like to bring up is the safety of having children and passing unwanted traits to them. PAWS can cause epigenetic changes. Even after you fully recover those changes might last. Thoughts? I would love some reassurance that if I am fully recovered and it's been a few years, I can get pregnant and the child will not have anything wrong with them. 🥲

Saw this thread pop up and thought i’d chime in here.

Epigenetics aren’t genetics.

Epigenetics are how your body adapts and reacts WITHOUT changing the genetic structure. It’s kinda like saying “not genetics”

So dont worry about underlying genetic changes from epigenetic stuff

After re reading my above post i should clarify a little and go a bit deeper

Essentially your genetic makeup is a whole ton of (mostly defunct, leftover and useless) information that your body uses to determine the design and how it works.

Epigenetics is the study of how stimulus can trigger your body to read the genes differently and interpret them to turn “on” and “off” processes or etc based on environmental need. When you reproduce, the current science is that you pass a “clean” dna sequence to your offspring with very little or no epigenetic shifts. That is why, barring some very out there occurrences, kids come out without cardiovascular disease, cancer, etc. Epigenetic shifts are more so a different reading of the underlying hardware that is the genetic code. The things that mess up your gentic code are things like ionizing radiation and etc, and generally result in death.

On 2/24/2026 at 8:08 PM, wheretogonow said:

PAWS can cause epigenetic changes.

Please could you share any evidence or information that suggests this, in line with the forum rules?

5 hours ago, Luke said:

Please could you share any evidence or information that suggests this, in line with the forum rules?

Sorry someone on the pssd subreddit told me I don't know of other evidence to provide. Ofcourse that person can be totally wrong. Sorry didn't mean to break any rules.

Edited April 16Apr 16 by wheretogonow

On 4/14/2026 at 8:26 AM, VeraVa said:

It's great to see some discussion on this topic here.

 

I stopped my medication nine months ago and I'm experiencing waves and windows. I'm getting married in June, and initially, we planned to start trying for a baby right after.

 

Now however, I'm not entirely sure about it, because my state doesn't feel quite as stable as I'd want it to be. That said, three months is plenty of time for things to change (and hopefully improve). My concerns aren't so much about the potential impact on the baby, but more about how I would handle things if pregnancy brought additional symptoms or I ended up feeling very bad even when the baby is born. My feelings fluctuate; when I'm feeling better, I think that of course I'll get pregnant but on bad days I wonder what I was even thinking...😩

 

I personally avoid reading too much about this topic because it's such a personal dream for me that coming across bad experiences would be very triggering for me. So I've stayed away from reading too much, since no one can predict how pregnancy will go for any individual. There's no point in making assumptions. That said, I did randomly stumble upon a couple of comments in SA where people mentioned their pregnancies went well, even while dealing with withdrawal 🙂 

 

So to summarize, I'm trying to take things slowly and not stress myself too much. I'm 28 years old and would prefer to get pregnant (if possible ofc) before turning 30, but we'll see how things go 🙂 

You have plenty of time to have kids, hope it goes well for you

3 hours ago, wheretogonow said:

Sorry someone on the pssd subreddit told me I don't know of other evidence to provide. Ofcourse that person can be totally wrong. Sorry didn't mean to break any rules.

Thank you for clarifying. It’s good to not amplify misinformation. It’s ok to have fears, but good to explain where they come from.