This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Prenatal parental depression, some antidepressant use increases pediatric risk for asthma
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Prenatal maternal and paternal depression were associated with an increased risk for asthma in children, though parental use of antidepressants did not generally increase children’s risk for asthma, according to study findings in Pediatrics.
“The use of antidepressants during pregnancy has increased, from 0.2% of pregnancies in 1997 to 3.2% in 2010 in Denmark, and from 2% in 1996 to 7.6% in 2005 in the United States,” study researcher Xiaoqin Liu, MD, of Aarhus University in Denmark, and colleagues wrote. “Studies have linked exposure to antidepressants in utero to persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn and pulmonary diseases. Exposure to antidepressants in utero may also increase the possibility of fetal growth restriction, a risk factor for the development of asthma.”
The researchers examined data from the Danish Medical Birth Registry to assess the relationship between antidepressant exposure in utero and childhood asthma for 733,685 births from 1996 through 2007. National Danish registries were used to determine maternal or paternal depression and antidepressant use 1 year before or during pregnancy. The researchers also assessed asthma in children. Asthma was determined if the children received at least two prescriptions for anti-asthmatic medications or visited the hospital for asthma-related reasons after age 3 years.
There were 21,371 children born to mothers with prenatal depression; of those, 8,895 had mothers who purchased prenatal antidepressants.
During follow-up, 84,683 children were diagnosed with asthma. Children whose mothers experienced prenatal depression were 25% more likely to develop asthma (95% CI, 1.2-1.3) compared with children whose mothers did not have depression. Antidepressant use during pregnancy also was associated with a 25% increased risk for asthma in offspring (95% CI, 1.18-1.33).
The overall HR for asthma after any antidepressant use during pregnancy was 1 (95% CI, 0.93-1.08). Eighty percent of mothers were prescribed selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) only, 6.8% were prescribed newer antidepressants only, 6.7% were prescribed more than one subtype of antidepressant, and 5.7% were prescribed older antidepressants.
Older antidepressants were associated with the highest HR for asthma (1.26; 95% CI, 1.02-1.55), followed by newer antidepressants (1.11; 95% CI, 0.89-1.39) and SSRIs (0.95; 95% CI, 0.88-1.03).
Children born to fathers with prenatal depression had an HR of 1.11 for asthma (95% CI, 1.06-1.16).
“Maternal antidepressant use during pregnancy did not increase the risk of asthma except for use of older antidepressants. This finding could reflect confounding by the severity of maternal depression,” Liu and colleagues concluded.
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts