Antidepressants in pregnancy affect baby’s head size

Babies whose mothers used antidepressants during pregnancy may have a slightly slower head growth compared to infants of clinically healthy mothers, Dutch researchers say. According to the study published in Archives of General Psychiatry, researchers examined 7,700 women and their babies to evaluate the association between a mother’s depression during pregnancy and the brain growth of her baby. Some 91.3 percent of the pregnant women had no or low depressive symptoms, 7.4 percent had clinically relevant depressive symptoms and used no medication and 99 women, or 1.3 percent, used a group of antidepressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI). The results showed that children of mothers with depression had a slightly reduced growth of body size including head circumference compared with women who were not clinically depressed. Children whose mothers used a SSRI during pregnancy were also more likely to have a slightly slower head growth. "Untreated depressive symptoms were associated with a reduction in total body growth, including the fetal head, during pregnancy," researchers wrote. "In contrast, prenatal SSRI use was related to a reduced growth of the fetal head, whereas prenatal SSRI use did not affect growth of the fetal body." “Fetal body growth is a marker of fetal health and fetal head growth is a marker for brain development,” said senior author Dr. Hanan El Marroun of Sophia Children's Hospital and Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam. “If the depression is untreated, it affected the whole body; but if the mother used SSRIs, the head growth of the fetus was affected,” she added. “This may mean that smaller head growth is not explained by depression, but by the SSRIs.” Researchers say the study cannot suggest mothers to stop taking antidepressants during pregnancy because their findings just showed an association and doesn’t prove that SSRIs slowed down the growth of a baby’s head. They hope that future researches lead to more documented and clear guidelines for the treatment of depression during pregnancy.