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Antidepressants Cause Birth Defects

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The main argument being made is that some antidepressants can cause birth defects, the article provides us with a study to help prove this. The study looked at data on more than 38,000 women who had given birth in 1997-2009 and compared what the mother’s antidepressants are and the child’s number of birth defects (Neighmond, 2015). One concept or idea that ties into child development is epigenetics, where the environment influences or alters gene expression (Berk, 2018), which makes me wonder if in some cases the child being exposed to an environment of a depressed mother, it may cause some genes to alter. This also ties into the concept of passive gene environment, where parents who are genetically related to the child set up the environment …show more content…

An example could be, if the mother or father is showing signs of depression, they may neglect to take proper care for the child. Maybe because they are depressed, they may not focus all their time into the child, rather focusing on their depression. A woman who avoids taking antidepressants during her pregnancy to try and ensure her baby is born without defects could still have a child with some sort of birth defect, other things can cause birth defects, such as current or prior drug use illegal or prescribed, or in other cases that child is just genetically predisposed to it. Birth defects can happen due to genes malfunctioning or even when there are problems with a chromosome (Berk, 2018). So, it is impossible to say that a pregnant mother can avoid birth defects by not taking antidepressants. This idea is further reinforced by Jennita Reefhuis in her abstract video when she cautions us that antidepressants are not the only thing that can cause birth defects, other possibilities such as pre-existing conditions in the mother who takes antidepressants or other unknown influences may have a large impact on birth defects as well (Reefhuis,

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