Scientists said taking antidepressants during pregnancy could harm the emotional development of the unborn child.
This is the findings of a new study published in JAMA Pediatrics. The researchers from The Columbia University found that those babies who were exposed in the womb to drugs such as Prozac and Seroxat had differences in both the gray and white matter of their brains.
Prozac and Seroxat are antidepressants. This included an increase in neurons – and the connections between them – in areas of the brain linked to feelings that could predispose them to anxiety and depression. While the gray matter is the emotional hub of the brain, the white matter controls feelings of anger, fear, disgust, happiness and sadness. Antidepressants are drugs used for the treatment of major depressive disorder and other conditions, including dysthymia, anxiety disorders, obsessive–compulsive disorder, eating disorders, chronic pain, neuropathic pain and, in some cases, dysmenorrhoea, snoring, migraine, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Some medications including antidepressants are known to be harmful when taken during pregnancy. Based on this, the safety of most medications taken by pregnant women has been difficult to determine.
Prescriptions of antidepressants have soared in the US by 65 percent in the last 15 years. Hence, the general advice given to pregnant women is that medications in pregnancy should be prescribed by the medical doctor.
Known as SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors), they are used to treat depression, anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder as well as post-traumatic stress disorder.
Prescriptions for them in pregnancy have risen in recent years, despite the fact that the drugs’ effects on developing fetuses are poorly understood and evidence that they could be harmful is mounting. Lead author Dr. Claudia Lugo-Candelas, a psychiatrist at Columbia University, said the drugs boost production of serotonin in unborn babies’ brains – leading to abnormal development of the circuit between the amygdala and insular cortex.
By: Appolonia Adeyemi
New Telegraph News
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