Has anyone here ever taken antidepressants?

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I was wondering if anyone here took antidepressant medication before or during pregnancy.

Antidepressant use during pregnancy was linked to autism in a recent study:

[I'm new to the forum so I can't link the study]

And for those who didn't take antidepressants during pregnancy, did you ever taken them before the pregnancy? What about the father? It appears studies found that antidepressants may trigger autism genes which theoretically could be passed on to offspring.

Antidepressants in water were found to trigger autism genes in fish:

[I'm new to the forum so I can't link the study]

I am a man. But, I would avoid all tobacco, alcoholic drinks and drugs that aren't required to stay alive during a pregnancy.

That's not definitive and it appears it may be the depression for which the drugs are taken that's linked to autism, though how seems to be a mystery.

I'm on antidepressants, but I've never been pregnant, nor should I ever become pregnant. If I were pregnant, that would mean that either I'm the subject of some horrible experiment, or I was abducted by aliens. :O

Nope. I didn't take any drugs while pregnant. The only thing I took were the prenatal vitamins.

And I was never obese, was not obese during pregnancy, and ate very healthily during pregnancy (I even ate quite a bit of broccoli!). My husband has never been on anti-depressants either, and he wasn't "old" (he was 25 and 27 at the time of conception). Yet, both of our children are autistic....... go figure.

Nothing before or during either pregnancy; just after the second, for post partum depression.

My husband takes nothing, period.

We've got a pretty clear genetic trail of ASD in our family. I think maybe, if there is a link, (and I am not saying there is) which is the chicken and which is the egg might be confused, as depression is a common co-morbid to ASD. So, did the medication trigger the autism, or did the mother's autistic genes trigger the depression leading to medication? We're talking a related group of traits here common to families with ASD members: depression, ASD, anxiety, ADHD, and so on. There are links.

Interesting. So neither you nor your husband ever took antidepressants.

There is something going on in the first world countries that is causing these rising autism rates. The autism rate in third world countries is ridiculously low. It just doesn't make sense.

Antidepressants have been used by many pregnant mothers for the past 50 years and when SSRI antidepressants were introduced in the late 80s it looks like that's when the autism rates REALLY began to explode.

I know studies have been done on public water supplies and researchers found trace amounts of antidepressants and anti-psychotics in nearly every public water supply source in the US and UK. Urban areas were found to have the highest concentrations of antidepressants in public water. It makes sense because psych drugs are extremely difficult to filter out of water. Could it be that these trace amounts are triggering the autism genes in the population? I mean studies have already found that antidepressants in public water trigger autism genes in fish, why not people? Who knows if we'll ever know.

I would not assume it is a First World problem, only. The cultural issues in many countries make acceptance/awareness even worse than in the West. Also, many places don't have the resources to do anything about it, so why would they bother wasting resources to diagnosis it.

I agree with DW_a_Mom the correlations of ASD with co-morbid conditions like depression, which are often medicated, make it very hard to parse. Also there are many people in the west, who went undiagnosed before the mid 1990's. This was before meds for depression for readily available.

The link in my family is clearly at least in part genetic. I would guess there are multiple genes and probably a ton of contributing factors. Whether there are any environmental factors that contributed to severity, I could not say. In my family's case, I don't worry about causation, so much as how to deal with it

There could be lots of other reasons ASD is not was well known in less developed countries. Inability to diagnose, less sensory overload for those living in rural conditions, and more. I've often said that I don't think anyone would have ever noticed my son was ASD if he had grown up on a farm, or lived like people did a few hundred years ago.

Overall, I think that ANY chemical introduced in our bodies is theoretically capable of triggering or aggravating the effect of the genes. Anything that acts like a grain of sand inside an oyster shell can probably start the process. Noise, too. Or a fearful experience. As a parent, I've seen so many "trips;" I think trying to pin this on one thing is an exercise in futility. And inappropriate.

With the first I did not and he's the ASD one. With my second I did because at the time I was close to suicidal, and doc and I figured it was the lesser of two evils. That son is not ASD.

At the time I was suicidal, I was diagnosed with depression, when in fact, I figured out later, I am actually bipolar. And I have read reports that bipolar parents are slightly more likely to have ASD children, but I don't know enough to know it that is valid.

I took antidepressants through most of my fourth pregnancy and through nine months of breastfeeding-- hate me if you want to, but I tried to go off them and it just wasn't happening. There would have been no way I could go off the antidepressants, live with my in-laws (who needed a smile and a perfect presentation and would crucify me if they didn't get it), and not go completely and totally insane.

The child is only two and a half, so if she's mild high-functioning I probably still wouldn't know, but so far she shows no signs of autism except a propensity to communicate by pointing and screeching instead of trying to use words (but that's also roughly to be expected from the youngest of four kids-- why speak if 'point-and-screech' gets her what she wants??). She makes meaningful eye-contact, approaches other children, engages in parallel play, engages in interactive play, teases... all the things she's supposed to do (and a handful of things that I never did, so I sort of doubt it's present).

Autism is, in a way, a First World problem (in my opinion anyway). It exists everywhere...

...but it's the First World that has the luxury of separating folks that are profoundly affected by this, that, and the other thing into separate categories and trying to look for the best medical treatment (as opposed to saying that they're "touched by God" or "touched by Evil" or "witched" or "scrambled" or whatever term other cultures use and either killing them, driving them out, or trying to make them as useful as possible).

And it's the First World that has the luxury of looking at the most mildly affected and going, basically, "Well, you may be smart, and you may be able to work, but you rub us the wrong way, so screw you." It's the First World that has the luxury of developing such a complex, nuanced, and fluid social structure that someone on the Aspie end of the spectrum can't navigate it, and the First World that has the luxury of rejecting something basically functional for being imperfect.

"Was linked" indicates correlation - so either this "study" was someone cross-referencing data on women (or men) who used antidepressants in the population with data on autism, or if they were really trying - which sadly is unlikely - they put together a double-blind study, gave some pregnant women antidepressants and some not, and then saw if the group who took antidepressants had more kids on the spectrum. You could do the same for eye color and autism, or family pet ownership and autism, or type of car and autism.

Problem is, there are ALL KINDS of other factors they aren't accounting for, the only one that we do have strong support for is genetics: many, many adults on the spectrum suffer from depression (see your informal poll above) BECAUSE of being on the spectrum. In many of these "studies" the relationship is backward. I'd love to take a look at the study itself - I know you can't post links, but if you give us the full title of the study and the authors, one of us can google it up and post it for you.

Correlative studies about autism are a dime a dozen. A while back, they did a study that linked older fathers to autism. Someone pointed out that men on the spectrum tend to have children later than others because challenges with social skills can make it more difficult to find a mate - so, in that case, the "link" is probably accurate, but the (theorized) "cause" is still genetics. Another of my favorites was the one that linked "intestinal flora" to autism - I happen to follow the American Society for Microbiology and I asked them if the study had controlled for the often extremely restrictive diet of people spectrum...and, no, they had not (Diet has a definitive effect on intestinal flora as demonstrated in controlled laboratory conditions - not perfect, but stronger evidence than a simple correlation.) Autism (or SPD) could be said to indirectly cause anomolies in intestinal flora, but it's unlikely it works the other way around.

Emily Willingham, who I love and who has a family member on the spectrum, has this great kit specific to scientific news: http://www.forbes.com/sites/emilywillin ... e-science/

Or this one is great, too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHew7MqP4UM (Note the autism/freeway one he mentions, which I think was a real study a while back.)

This is not to say that antidepressants are harmless, or you shouldn't be careful with them - but, if you are prescribed antidepressants during pregnancy, my guess is that you are at a high risk...and postpartum depression can be significantly more serious than autism. Postpartum depression can be life-threatening for both mother and baby: it is significantly better to be on the spectrum than to be dead (some of us actually like being on the spectrum for the most part.)

Obviously, talk to your doctor and ask lots of questions - I can't imagine that any doctor would be flippant about prescribing ANY medication during pregnancy, but I suppose there are doctors who are. Get a second opinion and a third if they can't make their answer make sense to you.

And, while I took antidepressants for a short time in my late teens, I had my son in my mid-thirties.