It is not a secret that unborn babies are taking nutrition and basically everything from their mothers. That is the reason why pregnant women are told not to smoke or drink and generally stay away from unhealthy habits.
However, some women still need to take their medicines. What about antiepileptic or antidepressant medication some pregnant ladies may need to take? Scientists from the University of Helsinki say that these medicines may have an impact on newborn’s brain development.
Utero exposure to antiepileptic or antidepressant medication may have a significant impact on an infant's brain network development. Image credit: Suhyeon Choi via Wikimedia
.jpg){kind=link}
Some medicines you cannot delay until the baby is born. It may be inevitable, but scientists still need to understand what kind of effect these medications have on brain network development of the newborn. Scientists employed an entirely new way of assessing the effects of pharmaceutical agents on the development of child’s brain function. They used electroencephalography (EEG) to measure electrical newborns’ brain activity during sleep.
Researchers demonstrated that fetal exposure to antiepileptics and antidepressants leads to widespread changes in the cortical networks. The exact effect depends on the type of drug, amounts of medicine taken and other major factors. For example, antidepressants had a bigger impact on local cortical networks, while antiepileptics had drug-specific effects on brain wide networks.
Mari Videman, specialist of pediatric neurology and one of the authors of the study, said: “What was clinically significant in the findings was that, some EEG findings linked to children’s subsequent neuropsychological development. Stronger changes in neural networks predicted a greater deviation in development at two years of age”.
Scientists cannot say what kind of an impact these neurological changes might have on the child’s development. However, these are bound to be negative impacts as brain networks are affected in early stages. Scientists are looking at opportunities to conduct further tests into this subject. They want to compare results observed in human children with research conducted using laboratory-animal models. This might uncover the mechanism behind those changes and may lead to development of therapies that could reduce risks that might be associated with taking antiepileptic or antidepressant medication during pregnancy.
Some medication cannot be stopped during pregnancy. That is why we need to understand the effects they might be having on children and find ways to minimize the risks. Maybe drugs can be changed, maybe other treatment approaches are necessary – only further studies will answer those questions.
Source: University of Helsinki