Association between maternal antidepressant prescription during pregnancy and standardized test scores in Danish school-aged children.

Christensen J, Trabjerg BB, Sun Y, Dreier JW Association between maternal antidepressant prescriptions during pregnancy and standardized test scores in Danish school-age children. Jama. 2021; 326(17): 1725-1735. doi: 10.1001 / jama.2021.17380

Commentary

This study was investigating whether antidepressants were associated with standardized test scores in Danish schoolchildren born to mothers who took them during pregnancy.

Of the 575,369 children (51.1% male), 10,198 (1.8%) were eligible children. The mean (SD) age of the children at the time of testing ranged from 8.9 (0.4) years in second grade to 14.9 (0.4) years in eighth grade and was significantly associated with lower math performance among the eligible children. The study of Danish public school children showed that children whose mothers did not fill antidepressant prescriptions during pregnancy had two points lower standardized test scores in mathematics compared to children whose mothers did fill antidepressant prescriptions during pregnancy.

Although statistically significant, the difference in verbal test scores was not significant, and the difference in math test scores was small, making its clinical importance uncertain. Therefore, the findings need to be compared with the benefits of treating maternal depression during pregnancy.