Antenatal Depression, Epigenetic Gestational Age, Childhood Psychiatric Symptoms, and the Need to Consider the Possible Effects of Unaccounted Confounders.

Suarez et al.1 examined associations among antenatal depression, epigenetic gestational age (EGA) as a novel biomarker, and early childhood psychiatric problems. They found that greater severity of antenatal depression predicted lower EGA and that lower EGA predicted total and internalizing problems at 3.7 years of age. Although they included many covariates in their analysis, we believe that the value of the study could have been enhanced by the inclusion of potentially important but unaddressed confounders.