Children of mothers who took selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) or serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) during pregnancy likely do not have a higher risk of depression or anxiety compared with those whose mothers who did not take these medications during pregnancy. The findings were issued this week in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.
“Most first-line serotonergic antidepressants such as SSRIs and SNRIs have reassuring safety profiles pertaining to risks of major birth defects and serious adverse neonatal events, particularly when compared to untreated perinatal depression,” wrote Ardesheer Talati, Ph.D., of Columbia University Irving Medical Center, and colleagues. “However, less has been known about longer-term neuropsychiatric risks.”
Talati and colleagues used data from the Mayo Clinic network’s Rochester Epidemiology Project to identify 837 children born to mothers who were prescribed SSRIs or SNRIs during their pregnancies from 1997 to 2010. They also identified 863 children born to mothers who took no antidepressants during their pregnancies and 399 children whose mothers took antidepressants in the year prior to pregnancy. Finally, a general psychiatrist and a child and adolescent psychiatrist reviewed the children’s electronic health records up to 2021 to identify probable cases of depression or anxiety.
On a surface level, exposure to antidepressants in pregnancy was associated with about a 40% increased incidence of depression or anxiety among children compared with non-exposure. However, the association was no longer significant after adjusting for maternal depression during pregnancy. Further, there were no differences in the incidence of depression or anxiety between children whose mothers used SSRIs or SNRIs in the year prior to pregnancy and those who used them during pregnancy.
“Together these results suggest that increased rates of depression and anxiety observed in the [SSRI- or SNRI-]exposed children are more likely to be driven by maternal depression or underlying propensity for depression rather than direct pharmacological effects of [SSRI or SNRI] exposure,” the authors concluded.
For related information, see the Psychiatric News article “Treating Family Members Can Break Depression Cycle, Says Expert.”
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