Incidence of psychiatric diagnoses in offspring prenatally exposed to SSRIs

A recent article in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry presents a study looking at prenatal exposure to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and associated increased rates of depression diagnoses in early adolescence. The report stresses that these findings are preliminary and should not be construed to change clinical practice.

The study is the first to investigate the incidence of psychiatric diagnoses in offspring prenatally exposed to SSRIs as far out as adolescence, noting however the vital importance of treating maternal depression, which can have significant adverse effects on offspring. Untreated maternal depression has been shown to increase risks of several perinatal outcomes including preterm birth, delivery by C-section, and bleeding during delivery.

Researchers used Finnish national birth registry data to determine the cumulative incidence of depression, anxiety disorders, autism spectrum disorder, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in the offspring of four groups of mother-offspring dyads: mothers exposed to SSRIs during pregnancy, mothers exposed to psychiatric disorder but not to antidepressants, mothers who used SSRIs only before pregnancy), and children of mothers unexposed to either antidepressants or psychiatric disorders.

They found the cumulative incidence of depression among offspring exposed prenatally to SSRIs was 8.2% by age 14.9 years, compared with 1.9% in the psychiatric disorder/no medication group and 2.8% in the SSRI-discontinued group. In contrast, SSRI prenatal exposure was not associated with an increased risk of autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, or anxiety.

Clinical depression and smoking

Jack Dikian

October 2011

Not long ago I was using the Google trends tool to look at various search volume correlations for clinical depression and other factors including smoking. I noticed Australians are in the top three countries using Google to search “depression”. The first was Ireland followed by South Africa. Another interesting thing, albeit, without a real hard look seems like there is about half the volume of searches for depression now compared to 5 or 6 years ago.

As I mentioned, my real objective was to see if there was anything to glean from data reflecting people’s propensity to use a search engine for perceived tag combinations such as “depression” and “smoking”.

Indeed, a study by the Toronto-based Centre for Addiction and Mental Health reports that the same enzyme, Monoamine oxidase (MAO), is found in elevated levels in both people suffering from clinical depression as well as heavy smokers in the early stages of abstaining from smoking. This could be why people struggle to quit the habit.

Smokers in the study also reported increased feelings of sadness in questionnaires done as part of the study. The researchers said such findings could explain why smokers are at a higher risk of suffering from depression — almost twice that of the general population, according to Jeffrey Meyer, a senior scientist with the Centre for Addiction who led the study.