To think that taking Sertraline when pregnant caused my son's ASD?

[Guilty85]

So I took about 150 to 200 mg of Sertraline throughout my pregnancy as I am prone to low mood. I remember a doctor at the time said it was ok for me to take it while pregnant and especially if the benefits outweigh the negatives. My son is 7 and is autistic, he is verbal but struggles socially and is very delayed speech wise and emotionally.
I can't help but wonder did the chemicals in the anti depressants enter his blood stream and for want of a better word, give him autism.
If your child has an Autism diagnosis, did you take antidepressants during your pregnancy?
This is something that has been niggling me for years. I don't have any other children so can't compare.

I took Sertraline during pregnancy and have AuDHD twins.
However, I'm also AuDHD, as is my sister, as was my Mother, and the twins' father is also Neurodivergent.

I was advised to come off anti-depressants when pregnant with my DD. I had a massive relapse in my third trimester and I have always wondered if the stress hormones contributed to my lovely DD's autism, and serious mental health problems. I stayed on my meds (setraline as it happens) when pregnant with my second. DS appears happy and neurotypical.

More neurodivergent people meeting others and having babies. 50 - 60 years ago most of us would have been institutionalised and not had chance for a normal family Life sadly. Not just those with complex needs, but so called "high functioning" too.

Then it becomes an ethical question.
If you are severely neurodivergent to the point it has life limiting effects and creates the most severe challenges is it ethically and morally correct to have children ?

I don't think this is true. My dad and my son are very similar. My dad didn't get much of an education, but was able to work in a factory, get married and have kids. My FIL is also likely to be ND and he went to university (despite problems with social understanding, being very disorganised etc - the stereotypical "mad professor"). Look at historical figures widely considered to be ND, eg Alan Turing. A lot of people were just accepted(ish) as being a bit different and not locked away. But they couldn't as easily met others like them.

That sounds like eugenics...

I wish people would stop saying “it’s genetic” there are some markers that a small percentage of autistic people have in common. Thats very far from a gene for autism. It’s possible that OP is right and AD in utero impacted her child’s neurological development. That’s exactly what happened with Sodium Valproate.

There wouldn’t be ‘a’ gene for autism, most neurodevelopmental variation is due to dozens of genes working together. Even something as simple as eye colour has been identified as the outcome of 16 different genes.

It is true certain drugs can result in the birth defects that cause similar symptoms to autism, but these are usually categorised as intellectual disabilities rather than autism which is currently understood to be genetic. It is true that before sodium valproate was found to be harmful in pregnancy, up to 40% of babies exposed were misdiagnosed with autism, but what they had was a drug induced intellectual disability, not autism. This is similar to how children with heavy metal poisoning were also misdiagnosed with autism, when in fact, they did not have it and once they had undergone chelation, their ‘autism was cured.’ Except they were never autistic in the first place.

Finally, while it is possible a medication taken during pregnancy might cause an intellectual disability, this is highly unlikely with Sertraline. Over 25,000 births of babies exposed in utero to sertraline have been studied, and there was no increased risk of any birth defects or developmental delays or disabilities at all. So sertraline has been proven to be safe to take.

@RainbowZebraWarrior I can post where I want, if Mumsnet didn't want it on AIBU then it would have been deleted or not allowed to be on it. it is a legitimate question I asked , am I being unreasonable for wondering if anti depressants caused my son's autism.
The other boards don't get much traffic and could be biased so I wanted a neutral board to post on with lots of traffic to get a proper all round view. I don't really care whether you would post here or not , i'm not you. Maybe don't tell people what to post and where , there's a thought!

Also thank you to everyone who has responded with their experiences, I really hope it is entirely genetic and the response definitely confirms that

@SpiritAdder the interaction of multiple genes, and environment is fairly well understood even by non scientists. I think given the amount of research and the number of individuals involved that they would have a much firmer grip on what combinations create this disability if that was the answer. In fact we all know that a “cause” isn’t necessary to diagnose autism, so autistic people who are also valproate damaged and autistic people who also have Down’s syndrome or autistic people who have any other trigger or comorbid are still autistic. As to how “likely” it is that a particular drug has caused a particular outcome, I don’t think you’re right in saying sertraline must be ok because so many people have taken it because that’s what was said about valproate wasn’t it? I’m sure there are other instances too where people have thought drugs were fine but it is going later that it’s not.

Except that several posters have linked peer-reviewed scientific research reports that indicate that in utero SSRI antidepressant exposure has no causal link to to autism. Sodium valproate is a different class of medication to SSRIs.

Valproate is a completely different class of medication from sertraline. They are not comparable.

I don’t think you’re right in saying sertraline must be ok because so many people have taken it

That's not what that poster said though, is it? What that poster said is that 25,000 babies whose mothers took sertraline during pregnancy were assessed and found to be unaffected. If you read the article linked from my first post on this thread, you'll see that in utero exposure to sertraline has been found to have no link to autism.

Stop scaremongering when the science doesn't support it.

What does harm babies, really harms them, and their mothers, is untreated PND. Sertraline is a safe treatment for PND. Mothers shouldn't be scaremongered into refusing sertraline nor made to feel guilty if they take it.

OP I hope you have seen from what the more helpful posters have guided you to that there is no evidence for a link betweén ASD and taking sertraline in pregnancy. Please do not torment yourself. You followed competent medical advice. You did nothing wrong.

Much like the measles hysteria. Crazy paranoid UNEDUCATED people on the Internet buying into a crazy theory that jabs cause autism. Guess what now we have measles outbreaks. Also gues what measles kills and disables. Let not do the same with antidepressants eh.
This thread shouldn't surprise me . But it does.

I beg your pardon! I said it was possible. I didn’t say it was likely or proved in any way. I am so far from scaremongering on the internet it’s laughable. Dismissing and minimising women’s fears is NOT helping them because what we need is fact not “don’t be silly dear”.

I didn't say "don't be silly dear". I gave facts in an earlier post.

I give up with this one. Some people absolutely will not listen. My son is severely autistic , my other children don’t have autism, I don’t have autism and neither does my husband. No one in our family has autism. I got told the other day that one of us must be autistic and we just don’t know it . 😂. Made me laugh .

I think mentioning valproate has distracted from your thread @Guilty85 and I am sorry for that. I think it’s natural to have a niggling worry about a drug you took when pregnant if your child has a disability. I haven’t heard of any link but I think even if it had the teeniest impact on your little one, you didn’t and couldn’t have known. We can only do our best with the information we have at the time. My child is very impacted by his autism and I often wonder if it was something I did.

This is like us. Nobody in either of our families have even the slightest of traits. We have 4 children and only 1 is autistic.
I’m told similar to you. It’s tiring.

Non-Mendelian inheritance explains how two people can each carry part of the genes for a condition without having the condition themselves and without all of, or even any of, their children having the condition either.

Not to mention that half of cases of autism are from spontaneous gene mutation , so it can be genetic without being inherited.

The chance of mutation can be increased by having an older parent, or through adverse events in pregancy, hence why there's been so many studies of pregnant mothers who are on medication.

Not disputing that some medications can be mutagenic or otherwise cause birth defects. Thalidomide, anyone?

Making the point that medication X's effects don't mean that medication Y has similar effects, especially when medication Y is completely different class of medication.

Each medication has to be assessed individually and the considerable evidence to date is that sertraline is safe during pregnancy.