Pregnant women on antidepressants could almost double their risk of having a child with autism, according to a study that is being hailed as ground breaking.
Extensive research at the Université de Montréal covered 145,456 pregnancies and births between 1998 and 2009. It linked the development of autism to the taking of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, often known by the acronym SSRIs.
Scientists homed in on the taking of antidepressants during the second or third trimester of pregnancy because this is the critical period of brain development in the foetus. The same risk was not found in women who used antidepressants during the first trimester.
Professor Anick Bérard, one of the study’s authors and an expert in the field of pharmaceutical safety during pregnancy, said: “Our study has established that taking antidepressants during the second or third trimester of pregnancy almost doubles the risk that the child will be diagnosed with autism by age seven.”
According to the professor, the risk is especially acute if the mother is taking SSRIs. This class of drugs includes brands such as Paxil, Prozac and Zoloft.
Antidepressants ‘increase risk by 87 per cent’
Shockingly, the research claims that mothers who had taken antidepressants during their pregnancies had an 87 per cent increased risk of having a child diagnosed with autism compared to those who didn’t use the drugs.
The findings may ring alarm bells across the medical profession, given that an estimated 20,000 pregnant women in Britain are currently being treated for depression with antidepressants. The figure represents around 1 in 25 of all British pregnancies.
Current advice from the UK’s National Health Service suggests that such drugs should be avoided during pregnancy because of links to miscarriage and health problems for the developing child.
Although this is clinically significant, expert advice from neurologists is that pregnant women on antidepressants should not stop the treatment until first speaking to their GP.
Bérard suggests that women with mild or moderate depression may want to consider non-drug approaches, such as therapy or exercise, which have been shown to alleviate symptoms of depression.
The full results of the study are published in the medical journal Jama Pediatrics.
Published: 16 December 2015
