For many years now, researchers have been examining the impact of prenatal exposure to antidepressants on behavior, risk of psychopathology and long-term neurodevelopmental outcomes. The findings have been mixed. One of the most significant challenges in conducting this research has been disentangling the effects of exposure to an antidepressant from the effects of maternal depression (either during pregnancy or later in the child’s development).

Furthermore, our data comes from observational, as opposed to randomized, studies; the women who choose to take antidepressants during pregnancy are different in many important ways from the women who choose to discontinue antidepressant treatment. Women