I just found out today that my son has autism. I took Wellbutrin and Zoloft during my pregnancy. The doctors said it wouldn’t hurt my baby.
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I’ve not heard of antidepressants causing autism.
Depakote has been linked to autism in the babies of pregnant rats. As far as I know, the others have not.
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I read that some studies link AD use in pregnancy to autism. I also read studies that say this link is caused by other related factors (e.g. mothers with autism genes also have a higher risk of depression, thus chance of using an AD, so there is correlation but not causation) and mum’s shouldnt worry about this.
Anyway, i hope you dont blame yourself…you did what you and your doctors felt was best. You dont know if the AD caused issues and you dont know what had happened if you didnt use it and got depressed.
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the only teteragenic effect would be from lithium albeit, trycyclics can affect the heart and rhythm of the heart. But the relationship with antidepressents and autism is a topic not openly entertained by the medical community.
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This is a very good point. If you hadn’t taken the medication, who knows how mentally capable of caring for a baby you would have been. I remember a few years back on here when a girl got pregnant off meds, and got hospitalized because she was convinced she was a zombie who didn’t need to eat food.
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I think this is important to realise indeed.
I also read depression during pregnancy has negative effects on the fetus.
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How old is your son?
He’s 10
15151515
I’ve struggled with depression for years. Matter of fact I was 33 or 34 when I got pregnant with my son and I naively thought I couldn’t get pregnant. Thought I was too old. Cos of the fact I struggle with depression after my son was born I had my tubes tied to prevent another pregnancy. I didn’t think it fair to bring another baby in the world while I dealt with depression.
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I understand…I think you made responsible choices for your son and also with the tubetying. His autism is not your fault!
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During embryology we learned that Autism has a prevelence of 1:110. Which is fairly high in my opinion. While the cause remains unknown, there is a direct relationship of incidence in mothers at or around the age of 34 and above. Further, the older the mother the higher the risk of complications arises in pregnancy and delivery. So dont think of it as something that you did or didnt do, its just a statistical probability of odds
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