Original ArticlesFollow-up of children of depressed mothers exposed or not exposed to antidepressant drugs during pregnancy*
Section snippets
Methods
Women who were in treatment in the Women's Wellness Clinic or with other clinicians and who met DSM-IV criteria17 for Major Depressive Disorder during pregnancy were invited to participate in the follow-up study. They were recruited before or during pregnancy (71%) or after delivery (29%). The study was approved by the Panel on Human Subjects in Medical Research at Stanford University. All women signed consent forms that contained a description of the content and purpose of the study, with one
Results
The proportion of prospectively/retrospectively recruited women was similar in both experimental groups (χ2 =.59; P =.44 ). There were no differences between prospectively and retrospectively studied patients on any of the demographic or outcome variables.
Discussion
The current study found that children exposed to SSRI antidepressant drugs in utero did not differ on most birth outcome and follow-up measures from children of depressed mothers who elected not to take medication during pregnancy. Drug-exposed newborn infants were found to have lower APGAR scores. At follow-up examination, the mental development of drug-exposed children was similar to that of unexposed children. However, we found evidence that prenatal SSRI exposure may have subtle effects on
Acknowledgements
We thank the women who participated in this study.
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Reprint requests: Regina C. Casper, MD, Stanford University, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, 401 Quarry Rd, Room 2365, Stanford University School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, CA 94305-5723. E-mail: [email protected]