SynthesisEuropean child & adolescent psychiatry2014
Maternal use of antidepressant or anxiolytic medication during pregnancy and childhood neurodevelopmental outcomes: a systematic review.
Synthesis in European child & adolescent psychiatry, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 43 papers, 7 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
43 citing papers in PubMed, 7 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 94 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effect of Benzodiazepines and Z-Drug Medications During Antenatal and Postnatal Depression and Anxiety: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Combinatorial chemistry & high throughput screening · 2025Pooled it
- Prenatal medication exposure and epigenetic outcomes: a systematic literature review and recommendations for prenatal pharmacoepigenetic studies.Epigenetics · 2022Pooled it
- Antidepressant Use During Pregnancy and the Potential Risks of Motor Outcomes and Intellectual Disabilities in Offspring: A Systematic Review.Drugs - real world outcomes · 2021Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Antidepressant Use in Depressed Women During Pregnancy and the Risk of Preterm Birth: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of 23 Cohort Studies.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2020Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Prenatal Exposure to Anxiolytics: A Critical Review on Brain Development and Neurobehavioral Manifestations in Offspring.Neurotoxicity research · 2026Review
- Benzodiazepine or Z-hypnotic use during pregnancy and risk of psychiatric disorders in children: population based cohort study.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2026Article
- Real-World Data Insights into Antidepressant Prescription and Adherence During Pregnancy in Catalonia (Spain).Drug safety · 2025Observational
- Article
- Association of Antidepressant Use During Pregnancy With Risk of Neurodevelopmental Disorders in Children.JAMA internal medicine · 2022Article
- Low reliability of DNA methylation across Illumina Infinium platforms in cord blood: implications for replication studies and meta-analyses of prenatal exposures.Clinical epigenetics · 2022Article
- Prenatal exposure to antidepressants or antipsychotics and the risk of seizure in children.World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) · 2022Article
- Prenatal and perinatal metabolic risk factors for autism: a review and integration of findings from population-based studies.Current opinion in psychiatry · 2021Review
- Maternal Distress and Offspring Neurodevelopment: Challenges and Opportunities for Pre-clinical Research Models.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2021Article
- Autophagy Induction and Accumulation of Phosphorylated Tau in the Hippocampus and Prefrontal Cortex of Adult C57BL/6 Mice Subjected to Adolescent Fluoxetine Treatment.Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD · 2021Article
- Mapping the literature on parents with mental illness, across psychiatric sub-disciplines: a bibliometric review.BMC psychiatry · 2020Review
- Decision-making about antidepressant medication use in pregnancy: a comparison between women making the decision in the preconception period versus in pregnancy.BMC psychiatry · 2020Article
- Developmental Fluoxetine Exposure Alters Behavior and Neuropeptide Receptors in the Prairie Vole.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Antidepressant and anxiolytic medications are widely prescribed and used by pregnant women for acute and maintenance therapy. These drugs are able to pass the placental barrier, and may potentially influence fetal and brain development. It is possible that exposure to prenatal antidepressants or anxiolytic medication may disturb neurotransmitter systems in the brain and have long-lasting consequences on neurodevelopment in the offspring. As all medication during pregnancy may pose a certain risk to the developing fetus, the potential benefits of the medication must be weighed against the risks for both mother and her unborn child. Therefore, information to guide patients and physicians to make a well-balanced decision for the appropriate treatment during pregnancy is needed. In this systematic review, an overview of maternal use of antidepressant or anxiolytic medication during pregnancy and childhood neurodevelopmental outcomes is provided. Some studies indicate a relation between prenatal exposure to antidepressants and adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes such as delayed motor development/motor control, social difficulties, internalizing problems and autism, but cannot rule out confounding by indication. Overall, the results of the observational studies have been inconsistent, which makes translation of the findings into clinical recommendations difficult. More well-designed observational studies and also randomized controlled trials (e.g., maintenance treatment vs. cessation) are needed to move forward and provide a comprehensive evaluation of the risks and benefits of antidepressant and anxiolytic use during pregnancy.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.