Increased depression, anxiety and stress during pregnancy can alter the fetal brain, negatively impacting a child’s early cognitive development, a new study suggests, drawing attention to the importance of mental health support for those who are pregnant.
The small study by the Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C.,in JAMA Network Open, is believed to be the first of its kind that demonstrates the altered fetal brain caused by exposure to psychological distress may be negatively associated with infant neurodevelopment, including social-emotional development.
For this study, a cohort of 97 pregnant women and their babies were recruited for a longitudinal observational study between January 2016 and October 2020. Longitudinal studies are when the same participants are examined a number of times to observe whether changes occur over a certain period of time.
“In addition, we found that prenatal maternal stress, even if not reaching the severity of a mental disorder, was associated with decreased infant cognitive performance,” they wrote in the study. Additional studies in the future with a larger cohort from different population groups and geographic regions would be needed for further confirmation of the results, they added.
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