Mood disorders such as anxiety and depression are frequent among women, especially during pregnancy. Up to 20 % of pregnant women may experience symptoms of depression with approximately 7% of these women experiencing major depression. Relevant treatment of these disorders is very important, both to secure maternal and consequently fetal health, but also because maternal depression and anxiety may have adverse effects on child development. Therefore an increasing number of women are using antidepressant medication during pregnancy. There is however some evidence that these drugs may lead to congenital defects as well as adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes in the children having been exposed to antidepressant medication during pregnancy.
One possible causal link between exposure to antidepressant drugs during pregnancy and adverse outcomes in infancy and childhood could be exposure induced epigenetic change, regulating gene expression. Epigenetics is the study of molecular modifications to the DNA itself or the protein complex that the DNA is wrapped around. Such modifications do not alter the underlying DNA sequence but heavily impacts gene activity and translation into the proteins that composes the structures of the human body.
The objective of this study is to determine whether there is a difference in the epigenetic pattern between offspring exposed to antidepressant drugs during fetal life, those exposed to maternal depression but not to treatment, and children of mothers without depression or treatment.
High quality epidemiological data and evaluation of epigenetic pathways provide unique ways to potentially link maternal exposure to antidepressant medication to later adverse outcomes. This may provide new knowledge much needed when giving advice to depressed or anxious women planning pregnancy or already pregnant on how to carry on with their treatment. These methods can also be used in future evaluation of the effects of other types of medication given to women during pregnancy and lactation.