Alessandra Torresani, who stopped her bipolar medication while pregnant

Mental health advocate and actress Big Bang Theory is due to give birth to her first child in June and has experienced three "horrific" bipolar relapses during her pregnancy.

Since Alessandra Torresani was finally diagnosed with Bipolar I Disordered at the age of 22 and started taking medication for "the volcanic eruption in my body," she believes two things are certain: "Drugs saved my life," Torresani says. . "I was told from the start that if I wanted to have children, I had to give up. This idea has always been there: "It's dangerous. I can't have a baby like that."

Torresani, now 34, only recently learned that wasn't true. A few months earlier, she had stopped taking lamotrigine, the drug that controlled her bipolar symptoms for 12 years, because she was pregnant with her first child, due in June. But over dinner in February, her friend Eden Cher from The Middle, who also lives with bipolar disorder, said she continued to take lamotrigine while holding her twins because doctors said it was safe.

"It was the wildest thing when he told me he was going to stay," Torresani recalled in the stands in an interview with the new edition of NEWS on Friday. "What do you mean? I've been told that you can't do this, but you don't want to judge and be like, 'I'm a mom who wouldn't do this.' It's like, 'I'm so confused!'

Then, in March, Torresani interviewed a reproductive psychology specialist at Cedars-Sinai on his EmotionAL Mental Health Support podcast. "And when I explained that I wasn't taking my medication, she was shocked," the actress said. "It's confusing. You hear so many different stories and theories."

This is a problem, say doctors at the intersection of psychiatry and obstetrics, where the stigma of mental illness and neglect of women's health research history can form a dangerous combination.

"Something is disturbing in mental health, more so than any other disorder, to stop the medication as optional," says Dr. Tiffany Moore Simas of Lifeline for Mothers at UMass Chan Medical School. "You will never stop anyone's diabetes or high blood pressure medication."