To grow up doesn’t only mean getting big and tall. It also means that other developmental milestones are achieved. Each of the four domains (Intellectual, Language, Socio-emotional and Physical) in development has milestones which need to be achieved. These milestones are made to be used as a guide and not as a source of worry or anxiety. Each child has a different developmental timeline and some may be more advance than the others. However, there are those that have really delayed developments and they are not viewed as “normal”. This phenomenon has been associated with a lot of things including the use of Paxil, an SSRI antidepressant, during pregnancy. Paxil has also been associated with antidepressant withdrawal in infants.

Basis on Paxil Causing Developmental Delays

Developmental delays might be difficult to diagnose since each child is unique and has his/her own time in achieving the milestones. The link between developmental delays and the use of SSRI’s was also not proven by other researches. However, a study that was published on Pediatrics, a medical journal, which was written by Lars Henning Pedersen, Tine Brink Henriksen, and Jørn Olsen established a basis on the connection of taking SSRIs during the 2nd or 3rd trimester of pregnancy with developmental delays. The study was made on 6-month and 19-month developmental milestones from the Danish National Birth Cohort. The study has 81, 042 women who don’t have depression, 489 women with symptoms of depression but are not undergoing drug therapy, and 415 women who suffer from depression and are taking antidepressants. Among the 415 women taking antidepressants, 336 are taking SSRIs and 76 of those are taking Paxil.

Delays in development were most noted in babies born to pregnant women who took Paxil and the delays are in speech, motor functioning such as walking and sitting upright and other cognitive developments. It was also observed that it happens more in boys than girls. The researchers cannot confirm if these delays are permanent or reversible. The delays may affect the child later in life but that is still unclear. The use of Paxil in pregnancy has been widely talked about especially with all the Paxil side effects being raised up which include birth defects.