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Prenatal Corticosteroid Exposure Increases Risk of Mental Health Disorders, ADHD
Prenatal exposure to corticosteroids is associated with an increased risk of mental health disorders and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders (ADHD) in childhood, according to study findings published online ahead of print in The Journal of Pediatrics.
“Exposure to antenatal corticosteroid treatment increases the cumulative risk of childhood mental disorders and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders, both in term and late preterm infants,” wrote corresponding author Ming-Chih Lin, MD, PhD, Children’s Medical Center, Taichung, Taiwan, and coauthors in the study.
The population-based cohort study included more than 1.1 million infants born between 2004 and 2010 in Taiwan. Researchers used data from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database to follow the children for at least 6 years after birth for a mental health diagnosis.
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Some 16,847 infants, or 1.45% of the babies in the cohort, were exposed to prenatal corticosteroids, according to the study. Those children had a higher risk of mental health disorders when researchers considered the entire cohort, the group of children born at term, and the group born late-preterm. Hazard ratios for a mental health disorder were 1.13 in the entire cohort, 1.11 in the term group, and 1.15 in the late-preterm group.
Investigation into the effect of corticosteroid timing showed exposure before 28 weeks’ gestation significantly raised the risk of mental health disorders in children. Researchers reported a 1.22 hazard ratio.
“The administration of corticosteroids in the early stage of pregnancy tends to increase the risk of mental disorders,” researchers concluded.
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