RESEARCH ARTICLE Increased risk of severe co

Full list of author information is available at the end of the articleBackground The prevalence of depression is high among women in the childbearing age [1]. Selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are currently the most prescribed drugs for depression and depressive symptoms. Partly, because some pregnancies are unplanned, and abrupt withdrawal of SSRIs is associated with complications, maternal use of SSRIs during pregnancies is common [2-4]. The proportion of pregnant women in Denmark who use SSRIs has increased by a factor eight during the period 1997–2006 [5], and similar increases have been observed for other countries [4,6,7]. Several stud-ies support the evidence that users of antidepressant tend to have lower socioeconomic status compared with non-users of SSRIs [8-10]. Serotonin plays a role in the early development of the heart [11]. It is therefore plausible that maternal exposure to SSRIs can result in congenital heart defects (CHD) in the offspring. Recent epidemiological studies have proposed a pos