General Health News
Autism Risk Slightly Increased by Prenatal Antidepressants
By: Staff Writer | Thursday 07 July 2011 05:00 PDT
Autism Risk Slightly Increased by Prenatal Antidepressants
A recent study discovered that pregnant mothers using antidepressants slightly increase the risk of their offspring suffering from autism.
The study, conducted by the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program in Northern California, analyzed 298 children that have autism spectrum disorders, their mothers and more than 1,5000 control mothers and their children.
Of those in the case group, 6.7 percent of mothers used antidepressants during their pregnancies, compared to 3.3 percent in the control group. Of those who received antidepressants, 65 percent were also prescribed selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, while 10 percent used SSRI in combination with another antidepressant. In the control group, 50 percent of those prescribed antidepressants during pregnancy used only SSRIs, while 18 percent combined the two.
The researchers revealed, after adjusting their analysis for maternal and other birth factors, mothers of children that have ASD were twice as likely to have had at least one antidepressant during the year prior to their delivery. Furthermore, compared to mothers that did not receive antidepressants, those with SSRI prescriptions were more than twice as likely to have a child with ASD.
"Although the number of children exposed prenatally to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors in this population was low, results suggest that exposure, especially during the first trimester, may modestly increase the risk of ASD," the study's authors wrote.
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