A study of nearly 150,000 people found that taking antidepressants during pregnancy does not increase the risk of neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, in children.
The researchers — who hailed from Harvard University, Stanford University School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Brigham and Women's Hospital, University of Pittsburgh, Brown University and Massachusetts General Hospital — analyzed more than a million pregnancies and followed children from 145,072 antidepressant-exposed pregnancies for 14 years.
Among that cohort, they found no association between taking antidepressants after gestational week 19 and the child developing neurodevelopmental disorders, according to the results published in JAMA. Apart from autism and ADHD, other tested disorders included specific learning disorders, developmental speech/language disorders, developmental coordination disorders, intellectual disabilities or behavioral disorders.
Past research on this topic has garnered conflicting results, and despite this study's findings, the researchers concluded that "given strong crude associations, antidepressant exposure in pregnancy may be an important marker for the need of early screening and intervention."