Prenatal Antidepressant Exposure and Child Motor Development: A Meta-analysis

Area of Science:

• Perinatal mental health
• Child developmental neuroscience

Background:

• Increasing use of antidepressants during pregnancy necessitates understanding potential impacts on child development.
• Existing research on antenatal antidepressant exposure and child motor development is contradictory.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically review and meta-analyze existing studies to determine if antenatal antidepressant exposure is associated with an increased risk of impaired child motor development.

Main Methods:

• Comprehensive literature search across major databases (PsychINFO, Embase, Medline, PubMed, Scopus) up to July 2017.
• Inclusion of English-language cohort and case-control studies reporting primary motor assessment data.
• Meta-analysis using random effects models on data from 18 studies.

Main Results:

• A significant association was found between prenatal antidepressant exposure and poorer overall motor outcomes in children (effect size = 0.22).
• Moderate heterogeneity (I² = 56.6%) was observed across the pooled results.

Conclusions:

• A small increased risk of poorer motor development may be associated with in utero antidepressant exposure.
• Methodological variations and limited control for confounds necessitate cautious interpretation of findings.