Details:

Alternative Title:
Clin Epidemiol
Personal Author:
Sørensen, Merete Juul ; Grønborg, Therese Koops ; Christensen, Jakob ; Parner, Erik Thorlund ; Vestergaard, Mogens ; ... More +
Sørensen, Merete Juul ; Grønborg, Therese Koops ; Christensen, Jakob ; Parner, Erik Thorlund ; Vestergaard, Mogens ; Schendel, Diana ; Pedersen, Lars Henning Less -
Description:
Background

Both the use of antidepressant medication during pregnancy and the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder have increased during recent years. A causal link has recently been suggested, but the association may be confounded by the underlying indication for antidepressant use. We investigated the association between maternal use of antidepressant medication in pregnancy and autism, controlling for potential confounding factors.

Methods

We identified all children born alive in Denmark 1996–2006 (n=668,468) and their parents in the Danish Civil Registration System. We obtained information on the mother’s prescriptions filled during pregnancy from the Danish National Prescription Registry, and on diagnoses of autism spectrum disorders in the children and diagnoses of psychiatric disorders in the parents from the Danish Psychiatric Central Register. In a cohort analysis, we estimated hazard ratios of autism spectrum disorders in children exposed to antidepressant medication during pregnancy compared with children who were not exposed, using Cox proportional hazards regression analysis. Furthermore, we estimated the risk for autism spectrum disorder in a sibling design.

Results

Children exposed prenatally to antidepressants had an adjusted hazard ratio of 1.5 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.2–1.9) for autism spectrum disorder compared with unexposed children. Restricting the analysis to children of women with a diagnosis of affective disorder, the adjusted hazard ratio was 1.2 (95% CI 0.7–2.1), and the risk was further reduced when exposed children were compared with their unexposed siblings (adjusted hazard ratio 1.1; 95% CI 0.5–2.3).

Conclusion

After controlling for important confounding factors, there was no significant association between prenatal exposure to antidepressant medication and autism spectrum disorders in the offspring.


Subjects:
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Antidepressants Autism Spectrum Disorder Childhood Autism Depression; Autism Original Research Pregnancy
Source:
Clin Epidemiol. 2013; 5:449-459.
Document Type:
Journal Article
Collection(s):
CDC Public Access
Main Document Checksum:
[+]
urn:sha256:1871765fb77e8a13ca30b1aa0eb5ca27dc475426102dca44b8ceb1fb8f0189fe
Download URL:
https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/21342/cdc_21342_DS1.pdf
File Type:

Supporting Files

• 	clep-5-449.nxml	txt
  	clep-5-449Fig1.gif	gif
  	clep-5-449Fig1.jpg	jpeg
  	license.txt	txt

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