Grant: Operating Grant

While antidepressants are commonly prescribed during pregnancy, there is conflicting evidence concerning the use of these medications during the prenatal period. Recent research has demonstrated that antidepressant medications cross the placenta and may have detrimental effects on fetal and infant development. While there is research that investigates short-term outcomes of infants exposed to antidepressants in-utero, such as low birth weight, and congenital and cardiovascular malformations, few studies have investigated long-term outcomes of these children such as childhood depression, ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorders, learning disabilities, and educational challenges. Furthermore, there is much less data available that compare the effects of untreated depression versus the effects of antidepressant use during pregnancy. This study will help address these gaps by utilizing novel administrative health and social data housed at the Manitoba Centre for Healthy Policy to comprehensively study both short-term infant outcomes, and long-term childhood mental and physical health and educational outcomes of all children in Manitoba since 1995 whose mothers took antidepressants during pregnancy. Through the utilization of this unique population database we are also able to generate a comparison group of children whose mothers were diagnosed with depression during pregnancy but did not take antidepressants. The results of this study will assist clinicians and patients to make more informed decisions regarding the use of antidepressants during pregnancy.