Antidepressants Linked to Pre-Term Birth and Newborn Complications

Although becoming a mother-to-be can be a joyful time in a woman’s life, more than one in ten expectant mothers develop depression at some time during their pregnancy. Many of these women are treated with a type of antidepressant that may increase their likelihood of having an early birth, or raise the risk for their newborn to be placed in neonatal intensive care.

In a recent study, findings showed that babies of women who took selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) during pregnancy were born earlier and had a greater likelihood of being admitted to intensive care. The findings appear in the October issue of Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

According to the researchers, SSRIs have been shown to cross the placenta and have been found present in the umbilical cord blood of babies born to mothers who took the drugs during pregnancy. To determine the effects of SSRIs on newborns, the research team compared the birth outcomes of babies born to 329 women who took SSRIs during pregnancy to those of women who did not. Among those who did not take the drugs were 4,902 women having a history of psychiatric illness, and 51,770 women who had no history of mental illness. All of the infants in the study had received prenatal care at Aarhus University Hospital between 1989 and 2006.

For those who took SSRIs during pregnancy, births took place an average of 5 days earlier were twice as likely to deliver pre-term, in comparison to the other women. They were also 2.4 times as likely to be admitted to neonatal intensive care and had greater than four times the likelihood of having a 5-minute Apgar score falling below eight, while scores of seven and above are considered healthy. (Apgar scores measure an infant’s health at birth based on breathing, heartbeat, reflexes, muscle tone, and skin color).