A recent study has shown that women who take antidepressants during the second and/or third trimester of their pregnancy are more likely to have a child with autism.
The study specifies one particular group of antidepressants, the SSRIs, or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, such as Prozac, Zoloft or Paxil.
In a report written by Anick Berard of the University of Montreal and colleagues, the doctors say that that the absolute risk is very small and very few children were diagnosed with autism.
Berard's team studied more than 145,000 children born in Quebec between 1998 and 2009. They found 4,700 babies, or 3 percent of the total group, whose mothers took some type of antidepressant while pregnant.
However, only 31 babies, or 1 percent of the group whose mothers took antidepressants in later pregnancy, were later diagnosed with autism.
"Other classes of antidepressants were not statistically significantly associated with an increased risk of autism spectrum disorder," they wrote.
On another note, Dr. Eva Pressman, who heads the department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Rochester in New York, said that the study raises more questions than it answers.
"If there is an effect that SSRIs have on autism, I think it is not a very large effect," Pressman, who has prescribed SSRIs to pregnant women herself, stated.
"If the patient can be safely managed without medication, that's always in their interest; in some patients, the depression is clearly more dangerous than the medication,” she explained, stressing that it's dangerous for anyone to suddenly stop taking antidepressants.
The researchers note that other studies have shown there could be a biological basis for SSRIs affecting a child's brain, however. "Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors cross the placenta and are found in amniotic fluid," they said.
“So, in other words, it's complicated. Autism is almost certainly caused by a combination of genetics and so-called external influences such as what happens in the womb and perhaps in infancy too,” experts say. Studies show when women get the flu while pregnant, for instance, it may raise the risk of autism.