ArticleEuropean journal of clinical pharmacology2015
Prenatal exposure to anxiolytics and hypnotics and language competence at 3 years of age.
Article in European journal of clinical pharmacology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 2 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.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 31 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
- Pooled it
- Prenatal exposure to psychotropics and analgesics on cognitive, linguistic and educational outcomes - a scoping review with focus on validity and reliability of outcome measures.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2025Article
- Prenatal exposure to benzodiazepine and z-hypnotics and fifth-grade scholastic skills-emulating target trials using data from the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study.American journal of epidemiology · 2025Article
- Prenatal Drug Exposure in Children With a History of Neuropsychiatric Care: A Nested Case-Control Study.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Article
- Use of Prescribed Psychotropics during Pregnancy: A Systematic Review of Pregnancy, Neonatal, and Childhood Outcomes.Brain sciences · 2019Review
- Association of Maternal Use of Benzodiazepines and Z-Hypnotics During Pregnancy With Motor and Communication Skills and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Symptoms in Preschoolers.JAMA network open · 2019Article
- Association Between Prenatal Valproate Exposure and Performance on Standardized Language and Mathematics Tests in School-aged Children.JAMA neurology · 2018Article
- Narrowing the Genetic Causes of Language Dysfunction in the 1q21.1 Microduplication Syndrome.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2018Article
- Cognitive outcomes of prenatal antiepileptic drug exposure.Epilepsy research · 2015Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
purposeThe aim of the study was to examine if there was an association between use of anxiolytics and hypnotics in pregnancy and language competence in the offspring at age 3 years.
methodsThe Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) is a prospective pregnancy cohort where the mothers were asked to report on their medication use at pregnancy week 17-18, 30, and at 6 months postpartum. A woman was defined as a user of anxiolytics and hypnotics during pregnancy if she had reported use of benzodiazepines or benzodiazepine-related drugs during pregnancy. Children's language competence was measured at age three by maternal report on a validated language grammar scale. We used ordinal logistic regression with estimated standard errors allowing for clustering of multiple pregnancies.
resultsForty-five thousand and two hundred sixty-six women with 51,748 pregnancies were included in the study. The women reported use of anxiolytics and/or hypnotics in 395 pregnancies (0.8 %). The odds ratios of being in a group with lower language competence were 1.2 (0.9-1.5) and 1.7 (1.0-2.8) for short-term and long-term anxiolytics and hypnotics use, respectively. When adjusting for SSRI use during pregnancy, the odds ratios were 1.1 (0.83-1.41) and 1.4 (0.84-2.33), respectively. Children whose mothers took no anxiolytics and hypnotics during or before pregnancy were reference group.
conclusionThe results refute any strong association between prenatal use of anxiolytics and hypnotics and lower language competence in the offspring at age 3 years.
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Registered trials
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.