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Link identified between prenatal stress, child socio-emotional issues
Maternal prenatal stress was linked with socio-emotional development in the child, with a more robust effect size seen in prenatal depression than anxiety, study findings published in Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry reported.
“We saw large discrepancies across the literature, with some studies showing strong associations between prenatal stress and children’s later behavioral difficulties, whereas other studies showed weak or even no association between these variables,” Sheri Madigan PhD, assistant professor, department of psychology, Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute, University of Calgary, told Healio Psychiatry. “These discrepancies create difficulty in knowing if an association exists or not. Thus, we conducted a meta-analysis, which combines many papers on this topic with the goal of deriving an overall conclusion that resolves uncertainly in the field.”
Researchers performed a meta-analysis of studies examining maternal prenatal depression and anxiety on offspring socio-emotional development up to 18 years later. Specifically, socio-emotional development included social and emotional competence, temperament, behavioral problems and crying or colic. Using random-effects meta-analyses, they also derived mean effect sizes and tested for potential moderators.
In total, 91 effect sizes from 71 studies were included in the data analysis and the sample sizes of studies ranged from 24 to 8,328 parent–child dyads. The results showed that across all the anxiety and depression outcomes, the weighted average effect size for the relationship between prenatal stress and child socio-emotional issues was OR = 1.66 (95% CI, 1.54-1.79). Madigan and colleagues found that the effect sizes were stronger for depression (OR = 1.79; 95% CI, 1.61-1.99) than those seen for anxiety (OR = 1.5; 95% CI = 1.36-1.64).
Results from the moderator analyses showed effect sizes were stronger when the participants had more severe depression and when their socio-demographic risk was heightened. Furthermore, the link between prenatal depression and socio-emotional development was also stronger in families characterized as experiencing socioeconomic deprivation.
“This research adds support to the increasing body of literature suggesting that prenatal depression and anxiety are potential fetal programming factors, affecting biological, cognitive and behavioral development in offspring,” Madigan and colleagues wrote.
“Our results suggest an increased risk to children exposed to prenatal depression, as well as to families who are socially disadvantaged,” they continued. “Investing in disadvantaged families with young children has a high return on investment, improving outcomes for parents, children and their families and avoiding later, higher-cost interventions.” – by Savannah Demko
Disclosure: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.