Most doctors would probably hesitate if you asked them the question, "Are antidepressants good to take during pregnancy?" It's a fine line. We know that it's important to treat maternal depression because it can adversely affect a growing baby. But there's much we don't know about how antidepressant drugs affect a baby's development. Perhaps those effects aren't all bad. New research suggests that mothers who take certain antidepressant drugs during pregnancy are more likely to have babies exhibiting accelerated language development.
A study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences looked at babies' ability to distinguish language sounds, both by visual and auditory cues. The babies were classified in three groups: children whose mothers were not depressed; those whose mothers had untreated depression; and those whose mothers had depression and took antidepressants. Researchers looked specifically at serotonin reuptake inhibitor drugs (SRIs) — drugs like Zoloft, Prozac, and Lexapro — which are probably the most commonly prescribed antidepressant agents.
Researchers tested the babies at 36 weeks gestation, six months, and ten months. In each age group, responses to various language sounds were carefully measured. The researchers controlled for variables such as fussiness, parental interference, and maternal education levels.
The results showed that babies who were exposed prenatally to antidepressant agents showed significantly accelerated language development. These babies were able to discriminate vowel and consonant sounds even in the womb, and showed mature language patterns by ten months old. Comparatively, babies with depressed but untreated moms tended to linger in the early stages of language development.
Study authors speculate that because SRI medications alter brain chemistry, they might actually cause a fetus's brain to be organized differently during development. It isn't yet known whether this accelerated language development is a long-term phenomenon.
I hope this study isn't the last of its kind. I've always been curious about the effects of antidepressant drugs on a developing baby during pregnancy, because three of my own babies were exposed to SRIs in the womb.
I was diagnosed with major recurrent depression and began taking antidepressant medication several years before becoming pregnant with my first baby. Once I found out I was pregnant, my doctor suggested I try stopping the medication to see if my condition would remain stable. The depression hit again with such force that my doc put me back on the drugs.
That's been the case for each of my first three pregnancies. The interesting part is that all three of my kids have shown very early language development. First words come at eight or nine months. They master two- to three-word sentences by their first birthday. By 18 months old, they have hundreds of words in their vocabulary and four-word sentences. I've always just assumed they were precocious kids. But maybe they had a little help from the same medications that were also helping me.