LONDON: Children exposed to antidepressants during their mothers’ pregnancies seem to have a slightly higher risk of autism than children whose mothers had psychiatric disorders but did not take antidepressants while pregnant, a study has found.
But publishing their findings on Wednesday, researchers said the results should not cause alarm, since the absolute risk of a child developing autism remains very small.
Depression is common in women of childbearing age. In Europe, experts say that between 3 and 8 percent of pregnant women are prescribed antidepressants.
Several previous studies have suggested associations between antidepressant use during pregnancy and autism in offspring, but researchers say it is not clear whether this is due to the illness itself, the antidepressants, or other unknown factors.
A Canadian study published late in 2015 found that women who take antidepressants while pregnant may be more likely to have children with autism — but it also noted that the overall risk is very low.
For this research, a team led by Dheeraj Rai at Britain’s University of Bristol, analyzed data from more than 254,000 children living in Stockholm, Sweden, aged between 4 and 17.
Their mothers were either women with no mental illness who had not taken antidepressants, women who’d had a disorder and taken antidepressants while pregnant, or women with psychiatric disorders who had not taken antidepressants during pregnancy.
Of the 3,342 children exposed to antidepressants during pregnancy, the study found that 4.1 percent were diagnosed with autism, compared with 2.9 percent of the 12,325 children not exposed to antidepressants whose mothers had a history of a mental illness.
The researchers stressed, however, that the absolute risk was small: More than 95 percent of women in the study who took antidepressants during pregnancy did not have an autistic child.
They estimated that, even if the association between antidepressant use and autism is causal, only 2 percent of cases would be prevented if in future no women with psychiatric disorders took antidepressants when pregnant.
In a commentary on the findings, published in the BMJ British medical journal, Diana Schendel at Denmark’s Aarhus University said the findings “should be viewed through the kaleidoscope of possible causes of autism.”
She said the small apparent increased risk of a child developing autism “must be carefully weighed against the substantial health consequences associated with untreated depression.”
Study finds slight autism risk link to antidepressants during pregnancy
Study finds slight autism risk link to antidepressants during pregnancy
Akio Fujimoto discusses RSIFF Golden Yusr winner ‘Lost Land’
- The Japanese filmmaker on his groundbreaking Rohingya-language feature
JEDDAH: Some stories demand to be told. Not just as narratives, but as acts of witness.
Japanese filmmaker Akio Fujimoto’s “Lost Land” is one such story. Billed as the first feature film in the Rohingya language, the movie took home the top prize — the Golden Yusr — at this year’s Red Sea International Film Festival.
“Lost Land” — which premiered in the Horizons section at this year’s Venice Film Festival, where it won the special jury prize — follows two young Rohingya siblings, Somira and Shafi, fleeing persecution in Myanmar as they undertake a perilous journey d to join their uncle in Malaysia.
Presenting the Golden Yusr to Fujimoto, RSIFF jury head, the US filmmaker Sean Baker, said the film “confronts the plight of displaced children with unflinching empathy and poetic urgency.”
Fujimoto’s journey to this film is a profound narrative of personal reckoning. Having worked in Myanmar for more than a decade, he recognized the unspoken tensions surrounding discussions about refugee experiences but never spoke out himself due to fear of persecution. The 2021 military coup in Myanmar, he said, forced him to confront a lingering sense of guilt about his previous silence on the subject.
“Looking back on my decade of work, I realized I had been avoiding topics I wanted to focus on as a filmmaker,” Fujimoto said in an interview with Arab News at RSIFF.
That self-reflection became the catalyst for “Lost Land,” transforming personal hesitation into a powerful act of cinematic storytelling.
Eschewing traditional casting methods, Fujimoto discovered his lead actors through serendipity during community fieldwork. Shomira Rias Uddin and Muhammad Shofik Rias Uddin, real-life siblings who play the film’s young leads, were found walking near interview locations, compelling the filmmaker to reshape the entire script around their natural chemistry. While the original script was written with two teenage brothers in mind, the discovery of the Rias Uddin siblings led Fujimoto to alter the script significantly.
Communication between the cast and crew became an intricate dance of translation and cultural bridge-building. With Fujimoto speaking primarily Japanese and some Burmese, the team relied on Sujauddin Karimuddin, a Rohingya translator who did far more than linguistic conversion. “He wasn’t just translating words but conveying messages, creating trust, and establishing a collaborative atmosphere,” said Watanabe, Fujimoto’s translator.
One of the most remarkable aspects of “Lost Land” is its linguistic significance. Beyond being a narrative, the film serves as a critical instrument of cultural preservation. Karimuddin, who is also a producer on the film, approached his role like a linguistic curator. “As a Rohingya myself, I had the privilege of choosing words carefully, trying to instill poetry, capturing linguistic nuances that are slowly disappearing. So, the film is very important when it comes to the preservation of a people’s language. It was a privilege for me to contribute to it,” he said.
As they were making the first fiction film focused on Rohingya experiences, the team felt an immense responsibility. “Lost Land” aims to humanize a community often reduced to statistics, giving voice and complexity to individual experiences.
“In our film, we had around 200 people — including extras — who were all part of the Rohingya community. I felt in order to show their feelings and their voice; it was really important to bring in the Rohingya people and tell the story together with them,” said Fujimoto.
For Fujimoto, whose previous films include “Passage of Life” (2017) and “Along the Sea” (2020), the film represents more than an artistic achievement. It’s a form of personal and collective redemption. “I can now clearly talk about these people without hesitation,” he said.
The filmmaker’s future ambitions involve expanding on this project. He sees “Lost Land” as a crucial first step, and hopes to support Rohingya filmmakers in telling their own stories directly.
“The next phase is bringing narratives from the Rohingya perspective, directed by Rohingya filmmakers,” he said.
