Depressed Pregnant Mothers — and the Antidepressants They Take — Leave Enduring Marks on Offspring

Both maternal depression and prenatal antidepressant treatment can affect developing children, but specific mechanisms linking these antecedents to outcomes are not fully understood. Two recent studies add to our knowledge.

Nemoda and colleagues focused on epigenetic phenomena. In 15 currently depressed and 14 formerly depressed pregnant women and 15 matched nonpsychiatric controls, they examined genome-wide DNA methylation patterns in T lymphocytes from mothers' antepartum blood and neonatal cord blood. All participants were nonmedicated. Whereas methylation patterns in maternal blood were similar across groups, they differed by group in cord blood; neonatal cord blood from mothers with current or past depression showed enriched methylation…