“What is the Effect of Maternal Stress During Pregnancy on the Cognitive Development of Children?”

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Review: “What is the Effect of Maternal Stress During Pregnancy on the Cognitive Development of Children?”
Jasmine Hrizuk
Saint Leo University
review
Studies show that when a mother is stressed, anxious or depressed during pregnancy, there is a high risk of the child born having a range of disorders which include impaired cognitive development, ADHD, emotional disorder, and conduct disorder (Glover, 2011). Glover added that the mechanism behind this is because the placenta’s function has been altered, allowing more cortisol, a stress hormone, to move through to the fetus. This literature review examines the relationship between stress during the prenatal and perinatal period and the cognitive development of the child after birth (Simcock, 2016). Additionally, it will review whether different kind of stress results in different kinds of disorders among children.

Some studies have associated genetic differences and epigenetic regulatory to moderating and mediating the relationship between stress during pregnancy and the cognitive development of the child (Grizenko, 2015). Grizenko’s (2015) objectives were to control external factors like parenting style and maternal smoking by intra-familial design and investigate the interaction of gene and environment. In the study, a large sample of children with ADHD was genotyped to examine the interaction between the gene and the environment. Despite the findings that there was a relationship between prenatal stress and the increased risk of children having ADHD, it was also evident that the relationship may be mediated through the DRD4 genotype (Grizenko, 2015). This was supported by Van den Bergh et al (2017) in their studies on the influence of prenatal health in pregnancy. Van den Bergh suggested that more studies should be conducted on the way genetic difference and epigenetic regulatory mechanism plays a role in mediating and moderating the relationship (Van den Bergh, 2017). Ronald et al (2011) was also in support and said that studies of gene-environment interactions may provide more knowledge about causation in both the context of Child genotype versus environment interaction and maternal genotype versus environment interaction (Ronald, 2011). Natural disasters are known to be natural occurring major adverse events but can also be used in studying pre maternal stress in children health and cognitively (King, 2012). King, et al (2012) studied the behavioural and cognitive development of children and animals in Utero whose parents were exposed to January 1998 Quebec Ice Storm. The 1998 ice storm had a high possibility of coursing stress to the people and animals since it was rated as one of the most costly and worst natural disasters since it caused deaths, destruction of powerline and economic constraints (King, 2012). The results from the study of women who were pregnant at the time of the storm and the children show that there was an effect on the children cognitive performance. The results also show that the effects of stress on children can be long term since the effects could be seen in children in their early adolescence stages. Austin et al (2017) were also in support of prenatal stress as a result of natural calamities affecting children’s cognitive and overall health development. They carried out a test on mothers who were affected by floods in Queensland and the results. The results on the cognitive development predicted gross motor score, with poor motor development associated with negative appraisal and with great motor score predicted by PTSD symptoms (Austin, 2017). Some studies have also found that the cognitive development of children as a result of prenatal stress is affected by the sex of the child (Cao, 2014). however other studies contradict saying that there is no difference in children cognitive development according to sex (Sandman, 2012).

The literature reviews results are in agreement with the hypothesis that there is a strong relationship between stress during the prenatal period and the cognitive development of the child after birth. However, most researchers suggest that more research should be done to determine the gene-environment factor and whether the strength of the relationship is different according to sex (Cao, 2014). How to research hypothesis for this will therefore be “Maternal stress during pregnancy has significant effects on the cognitive development of the child.”
References
Austin, M. P., Christl, B., McMahon, C., Kildea, S., Reilly, N., Yin, C., … & King, S. (2017). Moderating effects of maternal emotional availability on language and cognitive development in toddlers of mothers exposed to a natural disaster in pregnancy: The QF2011 Queensland Flood Study. Infant behavior and development, 49, 296-309.
Cao, X., Laplante, D. P., Brunet, A., Ciampi, A., & King, S. (2014). Prenatal maternal stress affects motor function in 5½‐year‐old children: Project Ice Storm. Developmental psychobiology, 56(1), 117-125.
Glover, V. (2011). The effects of prenatal stress on child behavioural and cognitive outcomes start at the beginning. Encyclopedia on early childhood development, 1-5.
Grizenko, N., Fortier, M. È., Gaudreau-Simard, M., Jolicoeur, C., & Joober, R. (2015). The effect of maternal stress during pregnancy on IQ and ADHD symptomatology. Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 24(2), 92.
King, S., Dancause, K., Turcotte‐Tremblay, A. M., Veru, F., & Laplante, D. P. (2012). Using natural disasters to study the effects of prenatal maternal stress on child health and development. Birth Defects Research Part C: Embryo Today: Reviews, 96(4), 273-288
Ronald, A., Pennell, C. E., & Whitehouse, A. J. (2011). Prenatal maternal stress associated with ADHD and autistic traits in early childhood. Frontiers in psychology, 1, 223.
Sandman, C. A., Davis, E. P., Buss, C., & Glynn, L. M. (2012). Exposure to prenatal psychobiological stress exerts programming influences on the mother and her fetus. Neuroendocrinology, 95(1), 8-21.
Simcock, G., Kildea, S., Elgbeili, G., Laplante, D. P., Stapleton, H., Cobham, V., & King, S. (2016). Age‐related changes in the effects of stress in pregnancy on infant motor development by maternal report: The Queensland Flood Study. Developmental psychobiology, 58(5), 640-659.
Van den Bergh, B. R., van den Heuvel, M. I., Lahti, M., Braeken, M., de Rooij, S. R., Entringer, S., … & Schwab, M. (2017). Prenatal developmental origins of behavior and mental health: The influence of maternal stress in pregnancy. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.