A quarterly publication of the Autism Research Institute
Summer, 2017 | Number 3, Volume 31
In the wake of three studies showing no link between maternal antidepressant use and autism (see ARRI Vol. 2, 2017), a more recent study raises questions about the possibility of a small association.
In the new study, Dheeraj Rai and colleagues used a range of analyses to explore data from more than 250,000 individuals between 4 and 17 years of age, including more than 5,000 with autism. All of the individuals lived in Stockholm between 2001 and 2011.
The researchers divided the individuals into three groups: those born to mothers who did not take antidepressants and did not have any psychiatric disorder, those born to mothers who took antidepressants during pregnancy, and those born to mothers with psychiatric disorders who did not take antidepressants during pregnancy.
The researchers found that of the 3,342 children exposed to antidepressants during pregnancy, 4.1% received an autism diagnosis, compared to 2.9% of unexposed children of mothers with a history of psychiatric disorder. Using fathers as a control, the researchers found that there was no increased risk of autism in children whose fathers took antidepressants during mothers’ pregnancies.
The researchers emphasize that the absolute risk of autism they detected was small, and that more than 95% of women in the study who took antidepressants during pregnancy did not have children with autism. They estimate that “if a causal link were robustly established, and if no pregnant women took antidepressants during pregnancy, only 2% of autism cases in this population would be prevented.”
“Antidepressants during pregnancy and autism in offspring: population based cohort study,” D. Rai, B. K. Lee, C. Dalman, C. Newschaffer, G. Lewis, and C. Magnusson, British Medical Journal, July 19, 2017 (online). Address: Dheeraj Rai, Centre for Academic Mental Health, School of Social and Community Medicine, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 2BN, UK, [email protected].
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“Study points to link between antidepressant use in pregnancy and autism in children,” news release, British Medical Journal, July 19, 2017.
