Grant: Project Grant

A mother's depressed mood during pregnancy and the antidepressant medicines used to treat this common disorder affect her child's developing brain and may be associated with anxious behaviors in early adolescence. For over 20 years, we have studied the development and behavior in children of mothers who were depressed and treated with antidepressants called serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SRIs) when they were pregnant. We have observed great variations in child behavior such as anxiety and not all outcomes are associated with prenatal antidepressant exposure. A mother's prenatal mood has emerged as one of the strongest predictors of child behavior. Even among children of depressed mothers treated with an SRI in pregnancy, children can experience negative behavioral outcomes and we wonder why some children are affected. To address this question, we will investigate whether everyday patterns of distressing symptoms (anxiety, somatic symptoms) in youths (15-18 yrs) of depressed mothers treated with an SRI during pregnancy and youth of healthy mothers are more anxious, are less physically active and have lower stress-related factors found in saliva. We have followed a cohort of mothers and their children since the second trimester of pregnancy (n= 110). We now propose to investigate behavior (anxiety) in our youth and determine whether everyday patterns of behavior at early ages 'predicts' similar behaviors at mid-late adolescence. Now in light of in person restrictions of COVID-19, we will use using a smartphone app and a wearable accelerometer to study whether 14-day 'real time' measures of anxiety, somatic symptoms and physical activity are related to two stress biomarkers found in saliva (cortisol, alpha amylase), prenatal maternal depressed mood and SRI exposure. We believe that our work will help us understand how a mother's depressed mood and treatment with a SRI antidepressant in pregnancy influences her child's well-being during a critical time of development.