ArticleMaternal health, neonatology and perinatology2019
Association between antidepressant use during pregnancy and autism spectrum disorder in children: a retrospective cohort study based on Japanese claims data.
Article in Maternal health, neonatology and perinatology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 21 citations in OpenAlex.
- Depression and antidepressant use in pregnancy and adverse maternal and offspring outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Article
- Association between craniosynostosis and neurodevelopmental disorders: a nationwide claims database.BMC pediatrics · 2026Article
- Article
- The Association Between Children's Autism Spectrum Disorders and Central Nervous System Infections: Using a Nationwide Claims Database.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2025Article
- Combination of taking neuropsychiatric medications and psychological distress in pregnant women, with behavioral problems in children at 2 years of age: The Tohoku Medical Megabank Project Birth and Three-Generation Cohort Study.PCN reports : psychiatry and clinical neurosciences · 2024Article
- Role of Serotoninergic Antidepressants in the Development of Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Systematic Review.Cureus · 2022Review
- Clinical epidemiology and pharmacoepidemiology studies with real-world databases.Proceedings of the Japan Academy. Series B, Physical and biological sciences · 2022Review
- Data resource profile: JMDC claims database sourced from health insurance societies.Journal of general and family medicine · 2021Article
- Subjecting Dams to Early Life Stress and Perinatal Fluoxetine Treatment Differentially Alters Social Behavior in Young and Adult Rat Offspring.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundStudies using data from Western countries have raised concerns that treating pregnant women with antidepressants may increase the risk of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) in their offspring. However, to date, the studies are inconclusive. We therefore examined the association between antidepressant use and ASD using claims data collected in Japan.
methodsThis retrospective cohort study was based on claims data from mothers and their children from January 2005 to July 2014, obtained from the Japan Medical Data Center. The information from mothers and children was linked using the family identification code. Information on antidepressant prescriptions during pregnancy was extracted from the database. To collect information on ASD, children for whom data were available 24 months or more after birth were followed up from birth through July 2014 or up until their withdrawal from the database. To ensure appropriate diagnosis of ASD, mother-child pairs where the children's data did not cover the 24 months after birth or pairs where children had a diagnosis of ASD within only 23 months after birth were excluded from the study cohort. We used logistic regression analyses to evaluate the association between antidepressant use during pregnancy and the children's ASD diagnosis. All statistical analyses were performed using IBM SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) Statistics ver. 21.0.
resultsOf the 53,864 eligible mother-child pairs, 26,925 met the study criteria. Crude analysis showed that the ASD prevalence in children was significantly higher with any antidepressant use than with non-use (odds ratio [OR], 2.32; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.08, 4.95). However, when the analysis was adjusted for the confounding effect of maternal depression during pregnancy, statistical significance was lost (OR, 0.76; CI, 0.27, 2.18).
conclusionsAfter adjustment for confounders, we found no significant association between antidepressant use during pregnancy and ASD in children in Japan. This result provides additional evidence to support the idea that antidepressant use during pregnancy itself is not associated with an increase in ASD in children. In addition, this represents the first evidence based on Asian data.
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