When pregnant women take antidepressants, it sometimes causes their babies to hit developmental milestones late, researchers have reported.
Today, as many as one in six pregnant women in the U.S. are diagnosed with major depressive disorder, and most are treated with antidepressants such as Prozac, Zoloft or Paxil.
Serotonin, the brain chemical targeted by these drugs is involved in a host of biologic functions, from mood, to attention, to appetite and general brain development. While medicines that ratchet up serotonin levels help dampen depressive symptoms, it is not well understood how a human fetus reacts to such drugs, or how long their potential effects last.