Behavioral symptoms are common in newborns exposed in womb to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a relatively new class of antidepressants. However, these effects appear to be transient and self-limited.
The study is based on 76 mothers, who were taking SSRI at the time of delivery and their newborns, and 90 unexposed mothers and their babies.
Smoking, alcohol intake, and substance abuse were considerably observed in the mothers of exposed infants in comparison with the mothers of unexposed infants. In addition, the exposed mothers were more likely to have asthma, migraine and cesarean sections.
The investigation revealed that amongst the exposed infants,
‘the signs most often observed involved the central nervous system including tremors, shaking, agitation, spasms, hyper- or hypotonia, irritability and sleep disturbances.’
All of these signs appeared during the first day of life and the average duration was 3 days for exposed infants. Also, premature infants, who were exposed to the antidepressant agents exhibited behavioral manifestations, compared with about two thirds of exposed term infants.
