Mother’s Anxiety Linked to Child’s Hyperactivity

A mother’s anxiety during pregnancy and early childhood could be linked to their child’s likelihood of hyperactivity, according to the results of a study presented at the 32nd ECNP Congress in Copenhagen.

While previous studies have examined the effects of maternal stress and depression on childhood development, less is known about the effects of anxiety.

To explore how maternal anxiety impacts childhood hyperactivity and inattention, the researchers conducted a latent class analysis using data from 8725 women collected from early pregnancy through the child’s fifth birthday. The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (at age 16 years) and results of 3 subtests of everyday attention in children (at age 8.5 years) were used to measure attention and hyperactivity.

Overall, all women reported increased anxiety symptoms during pregnancy, which the researchers categorized as “low anxiety,” “moderate anxiety,” and “high anxiety.” Having moderate or high anxiety was associated with hyperactivity symptoms in children at age 16, while low anxiety was not (odds ratio [OR] 2.27 and 2.23, respectively). However, maternal anxiety was not associated with attention scores before or after adjustment for sociodemographic factors.

“Maternal somatic anxiety during pregnancy and early childhood contributes to child hyperactivity but not to inattention symptoms. The differential effect may be related to specific pathophysiological mechanisms related to fetal neural programming during pregnancy or may be related to later perinatal modelling effects that affect hyperactivity symptoms specifically,” they concluded.

“This highlights the importance of specific maternal anxiety symptoms in pregnancy and during the first years of development in the behavioural outcomes of children. Interventions aimed at identifying and supporting women at risk of anxiety may benefit not only the women targeted but also their children.”

—Michael Potts

Reference:

Bolea-Almanac B, Davies S. Maternal trajectories of anxiety in the perinatal period and hyperactivity and inattention in children [presented at 2019 ECNP Congress]. Copenhagen, Denmark. September 7-10, 2019.