SSRIs During Pregnancy Linked with Verbal Disorders in Children
Children whose mothers filled 2 or more prescriptions for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) while pregnant had a 37% increased risk of speech/language disorders, compared with children whose mothers had a depression-related psychiatric disorder but did not fill an SSRI prescription while pregnant, a new study shows.
The findings appear online in JAMA Psychiatry.
“We believe that our finding about children of mothers who purchased at least 2 SSRI prescriptions during pregnancy is particularly meaningful because these women are more likely to have taken these medications and more likely to have been exposed for a longer period and to larger amounts of the SSRI in pregnancy compared to women who filled only 1 prescription,” said researcher Alan Brown, MD, MPH, a professor at Columbia University in New York City.
MORE: Esketamine Shows Robust, Rapid Effect in Treatment-Resistant Depression
The study sample was 845,345 pregnant women and their single offspring, born between 1996 and 2010, in Finland. The women were divided into 3 groups: 15,596 mothers diagnosed with a depression-related psychiatric disorder who purchased SSRIs while pregnant; 9537 mothers with a depression-related psychiatric disorder who did not purchase SSRIs while pregnant; and 31,207 mothers without a psychiatric disorder or history of purchasing SSRIs.
The study also found that children whose mothers had a depression-related diagnosis—whether exposed to antidepressants or not— had a significantly increased risk of speech/language disorders, compared with children whose mothers did not have a psychiatric diagnosis or SSRI prescription.
“The strengths of our study include the large, population-based birth cohort, prospective data on SSRI purchases during pregnancy, a comparison group of mothers with depression who were not taking antidepressants, and an extensive national register database that included other known confounders,” Dr. Brown said.
“However, the severity of maternal depression cannot be ruled out as an explanation for the increased childhood speech and language disorders among mothers who filled more than 1 SSRI prescription, and further study is warranted.”
—Jolynn Tumolo
References
