Dataset Information

Antidepressants during pregnancy and autism in offspring: population based cohort study.

ABSTRACT: Objectives To study the association between maternal use of antidepressants during pregnancy and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in offspring.Design Observational prospective cohort study with regression methods, propensity score matching, sibling controls, and negative control comparison.Setting Stockholm County, Sweden.Participants 254?610 individuals aged 4-17, including 5378 with autism, living in Stockholm County in 2001-11 who were born to mothers who did not take antidepressants and did not have any psychiatric disorder, mothers who took antidepressants during pregnancy, or mothers with psychiatric disorders who did not take antidepressants during pregnancy. Maternal antidepressant use was recorded during first antenatal interview or determined from prescription records.Main outcome measure Offspring diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, with and without intellectual disability.Results Of the 3342 children exposed to antidepressants during pregnancy, 4.1% (n=136) had a diagnosis of autism compared with a 2.9% prevalence (n=353) in 12?325 children not exposed to antidepressants whose mothers had a history of a psychiatric disorder (adjusted odds ratio 1.45, 95% confidence interval 1.13 to 1.85). Propensity score analysis led to similar results. The results of a sibling control analysis were in the same direction, although with wider confidence intervals. In a negative control comparison, there was no evidence of any increased risk of autism in children whose fathers were prescribed antidepressants during the mothers' pregnancy (1.13, 0.68 to 1.88). In all analyses, the risk increase concerned only autism without intellectual disability.Conclusions The association between antidepressant use during pregnancy and autism, particularly autism without intellectual disability, might not solely be a byproduct of confounding. Study of the potential underlying biological mechanisms could help the understanding of modifiable mechanisms in the aetiology of autism. Importantly, the absolute risk of autism was small, and, hypothetically, if no pregnant women took antidepressants, the number of cases that could potentially be prevented would be small.

SUBMITTER: Rai D

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5516223 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Antidepressants during pregnancy and autism in offspring: population based cohort study.

Rai Dheeraj D Lee Brian K BK Dalman Christina C Newschaffer Craig C Lewis Glyn G Magnusson Cecilia C

BMJ (Clinical research ed.) 20170719

Objectives To study the association between maternal use of antidepressants during pregnancy and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in offspring.Design Observational prospective cohort study with regression methods, propensity score matching, sibling controls, and negative control comparison.Setting Stockholm County, Sweden.Participants 254 610 individuals aged 4-17, including 5378 with autism, living in Stockholm County in 2001-11 who were born to mothers who did not tak ...[more]

PMID: 28724519

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Project description:There has been a growing interest in the association between maternal levels of vitamin D during pregnancy and offspring autism. However, whether any associations reflect causal effects is still inconclusive. We used data from a UK-based pregnancy cohort study (Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children) comprising 7689 births between 1991 and 1992 with maternal blood vitamin D levels recorded during pregnancy and at least one recorded outcome measure, including autism diagnosis and autism-associated traits. The association between each outcome with seasonal and gestational age-adjusted maternal serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D during pregnancy was estimated using confounder-adjusted regression models. Multiple imputation was used to account for missing data, and restricted cubic splines were used to investigate nonlinear associations. Mendelian randomization was used to strengthen causal inference. No strong evidence of an association between maternal serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D during pregnancy and any offspring autism-associated outcome was found using multivariable regression analysis (autism diagnosis: adjusted OR = 0.98, 95% CI = 0.90-1.06), including with multiple imputation (autism diagnosis: adjusted OR = 0.99, 95% CI = 0.93-1.06), and no evidence of a causal effect was suggested by Mendelian randomization (autism diagnosis: causal OR = 1.08, 95% CI = 0.46-2.55). Some evidence of increased odds of autism-associated traits at lower levels of maternal serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D was found using spline analysis. Our study was potentially limited by low power, particularly for diagnosed autism cases as an outcome. The cohort may not have captured the extreme lows of the distribution of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D, and our analyses may have been biased by residual confounding and missing data. The present study found no strong evidence of a causal link between maternal vitamin D levels in pregnancy and offspring diagnosis or traits of autism.

Project description:Objective To investigate the association between in utero exposure to antidepressants and risk of psychiatric disorders.Design Population based cohort study.Setting Danish national registers.Participants 905 383 liveborn singletons born during 1998-2012 in Denmark and followed from birth until July 2014, death, emigration, or date of first psychiatric diagnosis, whichever came first. The children were followed for a maximum of 16.5 years and contributed 8.1×106 person years at risk.Exposures for observational studies Children were categorised into four groups according to maternal antidepressant use within two years before and during pregnancy: unexposed, antidepressant discontinuation (use before but not during pregnancy), antidepressant continuation (use both before and during pregnancy), and new user (use only during pregnancy).Main outcome measure First psychiatric diagnosis in children, defined as first day of inpatient or outpatient treatment for psychiatric disorders. Hazard ratios of psychiatric disorders were estimated using Cox regression models.Results Overall, psychiatric disorders were diagnosed in 32 400 children. The adjusted 15 year cumulative incidence of psychiatric disorders was 8.0% (95% confidence interval 7.9% to 8.2%) in the unexposed group, 11.5% (10.3% to 12.9%) in the antidepressant discontinuation group, 13.6% (11.3% to 16.3%) in the continuation group, and 14.5% (10.5% to 19.8%) in the new user group. The antidepressant continuation group had an increased risk of psychiatric disorders (hazard ratio 1.27, 1.17 to 1.38), compared with the discontinuation group.Conclusions In utero exposure to antidepressants was associated with increased risk of psychiatric disorders. The association may be attributable to the severity of underlying maternal disorders in combination with antidepressant exposure in utero. The findings suggest that focusing solely on a single psychiatric disorder among offspring in studies of in utero antidepressant exposure may be too restrictive.

Project description:BackgroundIdentifying risk factors for adverse health outcomes in children is important. The intrauterine environment plays a pivotal role for health and disease across life.ObjectivesWe conducted a comprehensive study to determine whether common psychosocial stress during pregnancy is a risk factor for a wide spectrum of pediatric diseases in the offspring.MethodsThe study was conducted using prospective data in a population-based sample of mothers with live singleton births (n = 66,203; 71.4% of those eligible) from the Danish National Birth Cohort. We estimated the association between maternal stress during pregnancy (classified based on two a priori-defined indicators of common stress forms, life stress and emotional stress) and offspring diseases during childhood (grouped into 16 categories of diagnoses from the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, based on data from national registries), controlling for maternal stress after pregnancy.ResultsMedian age at end of follow-up was 6.2 (range, 3.6-8.9) years. Life stress (highest compared with lowest quartile) was associated with an increased risk of conditions originating in the perinatal period [odds ratio (OR) = 1.13; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.06, 1.21] and congenital malformations (OR=1.17; CI: 1.06, 1.28) and of the first diagnosis of infection [hazard ratio (HR) = 1.28; CI: 1.17, 1.39], mental disorders (age 0-2.5 years: HR = 2.03; CI: 1.32, 3.14), and eye (age 0-4.5 years: HR = 1.27; CI: 1.06, 1.53), ear (HR = 1.36; CI: 1.23, 1.51), respiratory (HR = 1.27; CI; 1.19, 1.35), digestive (HR = 1.23; CI: 1.11, 1.37), skin (HR = 1.24; CI: 1.09, 1.43), musculoskeletal (HR = 1.15; CI: 1.01-1.30), and genitourinary diseases (HR = 1.25; CI; 1.08, 1.45). Emotional stress was associated with an increased risk for the first diagnosis of infection (HR = 1.09; CI: 1.01, 1.18) and a decreased risk for the first diagnosis of endocrine (HR = 0.81; CI; 0.67, 0.99), eye (HR = 0.84; CI; 0.71, 0.99), and circulatory diseases (age 0-3 years: HR = 0.63; CI: 0.42, 0.95).ConclusionsMaternal life stress during pregnancy may be a common risk factor for impaired child health. The results suggest new approaches to reduce childhood diseases.

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Antidepressants during pregnancy and autism in offspring: population based cohort study.

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Antidepressants during pregnancy and autism in offspring: population based cohort study.

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