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.

Not to mention that half of cases of autism are from spontaneous gene mutation , so it can be genetic without being inherited. my understanding was they still didn’t know the cause(s), so where does this statement originate?

@MaidOfAle , I agree, Sertraline is most likely safe, like I've said before. I'm just saying that the possibility of a link was credible enough for there to have been a lot of research into it. I wasn't arguing against you, but rather the many people in the thread who think autism is always 100% inherited. To these people the idea of medicine having an effect seems absurd.

@TomeTome See this article, or this older one which goes into it a bit more. It's not that the exact causes of autism are fully known, but that there's good evidence that:

1. There's a very large genetic component (identical twins have a 90% chance of both being autistic if one is, though the presentation is apprently often quite different).
2. In the study they looked at the clusters of genes that might be playing a role and showed that in about half the cases, the change was due to mutations rather than Mendelian inheritance.

It’s an interesting bit of research but I think some of your statements are less science based and more fluffy. You could probably make similar statements about incidence about something that isn’t based in genetics at all or even biology. For example (and I’m making this up as an example it is not a fact). Sexual Abuse often “runs” in families. We know of course this is trauma not genetic. If we talked about twins we could probably find that there were more identical twins who were both abused and carried that trauma forwards than fraternal twins. In the case of autism what could make it more likely that both twins were affected if they were identical? It doesn’t have to be that “they carry the same genes so duh”. It could simply be they are the same sex, after all only a quarter of fraternal twins are boy boy and we know boys are more likely to hit the criteria.
I’m always fascinated by why people want it to be genetic or vaccines or heavy metals or whatever their focus was/is. What makes that answer attractive to them. There’s a lot of resistance to finding a measurable cause and that’s interesting too.

@mossylog I haven't read the full paper just the article. I think you may be misinterpreting the findings somewhat. The paper identifies ~200 inherited genes that are "vulnerable to mutation". It also specifically refers to "children affected with severe ASD".

I'm work in STEM and read hundreds, maybe thousands of articles like that per year, and something like a couple of papers a week. It's like Chinese whispers, a paper will propose a particular hypothesis, the science journals will summarise the paper but give it catchy headline. Mainstream media and others will take the headline and maybe skim the article, but rarely read the paper, let alone the references. By the time the information gets to social media the actual hypothesis can be wildly misinterpreted. In both mainstream and social media I've even seen the details and nuances of a paper completely reversed.

In this case you've linked to the article, which is great, and the article is very well written, clear and concise. The head line is somewhat misleading (it misses out the word "severe" in front of autism). The article also raises more questions than it answers.

I'd urge you to be very careful before making sweeping statements such as: Not to mention that half of cases of autism are from spontaneous gene mutation , so it can be genetic without being inherited.

I was on Sertraline with my 2nd child who has suspected ASD and I do feel that this potentially contributed in some way. Perhaps it will come out as a potential cause later down the line?

Or your depression is linked to the same genetic variations in you that are present in autistic individuals in whom depression is more common ?

Interesting about the prenatal steroids. I don't recall being told of any side effects or there being any real choice about taking them or not. I'd never thought about potential side effects of these.

Or you all ate bananas on a Tuesday … I think the fact we don’t know despite A LOT of interest is telling.

When did you have them? When I had them for my eldest son in 2017 I wasn’t given any information. When I had my youngest last year; they provided a fact sheet and links to research then so I assumed it was fairly recent research.

It was 2008 so a long time ago now.

I mean this kindly OP, I have DC with autism. It is more than enough stress on anyone parenting a child with ASD diagnosis without adding your own guilt about what caused it to the process. What good would that do us to really know anyway. What would it change for you? Your kids?

Nobody knows the exact cause but it’s most likely to be your and your partner’s own genetics. Which you didn’t cause and you can’t control. Nobody asks to be born and nobody asks for a genotype. So as parents of children with additional needs we all have to make the most of the cards we are dealt, and live in the now.

Especially in this run up to a general election which will provide a government for the next five years of all of our kids’ childhoods. My advice is to focus on looking to the future and thinking about the support you might need to get them through this next period.

I echo this completely

There's no cause. It's genetic. You might have needed anti depressants as you are HF. That's the common denominator.