Antidepressant use in pregnancy may raise autism risk

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From CNN - Children whose mothers take Zoloft, Prozac, or similar antidepressants during pregnancy are twice as likely as other children to have a dianosis of autism or a related disorder, according to a small new study, the first to examine the relationship between antidepressants and autism risk.

This class of antidepressants, known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), may be especially risky early on in a pregnancy, the study suggests. Children who were exposed to the drugs during the first trimester were nearly four times as likely to develop an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) compared with unexposed children, according to the study, which appears in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

The study included fewer than 300 children with a diagnosed ASD and does not prove that taking SSRIs during pregnancy directly causes ASDs, which affect approximately 1 percent of children in the U.S. The findings will need to be confirmed in larger studies, and should not dissuade women from starting or continuing to take SSRIs, experts on prenatal drug exposure and mental health say.

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you really should only take prenatal vitamnins and folic acid when pregnant. Right now there is a class action lawsuit against many antidepresants causing debilitating birth defects when taken during pregnant.
all substances going into the mother affect the devlopment of the fetus one way or another and SSRI's are powerful drugs and should not be taken while pregnant whether or not it causes autism.

I did not take any drugs during my pregnancy (or before that), just vitamins and iron because my hemoglobin was low, and my daughter has AS. Her father is Aspie too, so maybe that's why.