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Antipsychotic use during pregnancy is not associated with lower school test scores in offspring
Clinical Question
Does in-utero exposure to an antipsychotic affect neurodevelopment as measured by school test scores?
Bottom line
Neurodevelopmental deficit, as measured by performance on standardized school tests, is not associated with maternal antipsychotic medicine use. 1b
Reference
Study design: Cohort (prospective)
Funding: Government
Setting: Population-based
Synopsis
This study, conducted in Denmark, used a registry to identify 816,616 live births occurring over 12 years. The authors also identified, through prescription records, 1442 (0.2%) mothers who had at least one prescription filled for an antipsychotic medicine. Standardized school tests in language and mathematics between second and eighth grade were used as measures of neurodevelopment. At least one school test was available for 84.8% of the children. After controlling for myriad other factors, such as maternal age at delivery, education, income, and smoking during pregnancy (which was much higher in the exposed group), there was no difference in average language or mathematics scores. There was also no difference when evaluating exposure in the first trimester or when comparing first-generation with second-generation antipsychotics.
Reviewer
Allen F. Shaughnessy, PharmD, MMedEd
Professor of Family Medicine
Tufts University
Boston, MA
Comments
Antipsychotics in pregnancy
Good to know the fetus is not adversely affected.
surprising
good info
helpful info
helpful info
good to know drugs may be safe option in pregnancy
as above
antipsychotic meds in pregnancy
no increase in neurodevelopmental development in offspring