Akhila Srinivas Reddy

• Reddy, Akhila Srinivas; Gelder, Marleen van; Olstad, Emilie Willoch; Gervin, Kristina; Torkildsen, Janne von Koss & Nordeng, Hedvig Marie Egeland (2025). Prevalence of Neurodevelopmental Disorders in Families of Women Taking Psychotropic Medication During Pregnancy. Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology. ISSN 0269-5022. 40(1), p. 97–108. doi: 10.1111/ppe.70075. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Background Familial and environmental factors contribute to neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs). Prenatal psychotropic exposure may influence the risk of NDDs in children. As these medications are prescribed to women with mental disorders, which are genetically and environmentally linked to NDDs, accounting for familial confounding is essential when studying medication safety in pregnancy. Objectives To compare the prevalence of NDDs in pregnant women using psychotropics, their partners, and their previous children, with those not using these medications. Methods We included data from the most recent pregnancy of Norwegian women with mental disorders who gave birth between 2010 and 2018, using Norwegian registries. Maternal psychotropic use included antidepressants, antipsychotics, anxiolytics, hypnotics, and sedatives, as recorded in the Norwegian Prescription Database. NDDs were identified using ICD-10 codes for intellectual disabilities, language/scholastic disorders, pervasive developmental disorders, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorders (ADHD) from the Norwegian Patient Registry. Modified Poisson regression estimated crude and adjusted relative risks (aRRs) for the association between psychotropic use and family history of NDDs. Results The study included 27,638 women. Among psychotropic users, NDDs prevalence was 9.6% in women, 5.4% in partners, and 10.0% in previous children, compared to 5.7%, 4.6%, and 8.0% in non-users, respectively. ADHD was the most prevalent NDD. Psychotropic use in pregnancy was associated with any NDD, particularly ADHD, in the women [any NDD aRR 1.77 (95% CI 1.60, 1.95); ADHD aRR 1.79 (95% CI 1.61, 1.98)], previous children [any NDD aRR 1.25 (95% CI 1.07, 1.47); ADHD aRR 1.26 (95% CI 1.02, 1.54)], and partners [any NDD aRR 1.21 (95% CI 1.06, 1.37); ADHD aRR 1.22 (95% CI 1.07, 1.39)]. Conclusions Prenatal psychotropic use was associated with a higher prevalence of NDDs in mothers and their previous children, highlighting the need to account for familial neurodevelopmental patterns to distinguish the effects of psychotropics from underlying genetic or familial factors.

• Reddy, Akhila Srinivas; Fawad, Fatima; Leite, Mila Apostolova; Olstad, Emilie Willoch; Gervin, Kristina & Kanduri, Chakravarthi [Show all 11 contributors for this article] (2025). Prenatal exposure to psychotropics and analgesics on cognitive, linguistic and educational outcomes – a scoping review with focus on validity and reliability of outcome measures. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth. 25. doi: 10.1186/s12884-025-07235-6. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Objective To provide an overview of the observational studies on child’s cognitive, linguistic, and educational outcomes following prenatal exposure to psychotropics and analgesics, including reporting of outcome measure validity and reliability. Study design We searched four databases, MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, and PubMed from inception to September 2023. We included all original studies involving participants less than 18 years old, who were prenatally exposed to psychotropics and/or analgesics with cognitive, linguistic, and/or educational outcomes and excluded those lacking comparison groups. Results 80 studies were identified. Most studies (47%) focused on the effects of prenatal exposure to antiepileptics on child cognition. Valproate was consistently associated with an increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders, whereas the results for other medications were sparse and conflicting. Neurodevelopmental outcomes were measured by psychometric assessments in 71 studies and by diagnostic codes in health care registries in nine studies. Only 33 of the 71 studies (46.5%) using psychometric measures mentioned the psychometric properties of the instruments used. In studies using diagnostic outcome measures, only one study reported positive predictive values and performed a sensitivity analysis to address outcome misclassification. Conclusion Except for valproate, there is a concerning lack of studies on the impact of prenatal exposure to psychotropics and analgesics on cognitive, linguistic, and educational outcomes with existing studies yielding inconsistent findings. Regardless of whether psychometric measures or diagnostic codes were used, most studies lacked a robust assessment of outcome measures, which threatens their validity and interpretability. Future studies on long-term prenatal medication safety need to focus on the accuracy of neurodevelopmental outcome measures.

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• Reddy, Akhila Srinivas (2024). Prevalence of neurodevelopmental disorders among families of women using psychotropic medications during pregnancy. Full text in Research Archive

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