A new study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry led by child and adolescent psychiatry leader Jean A. Frazier, MD, found a link between inflammation during pregnancy and the risk of children suffering from emotional, cognitive and behavioral problems later in life.
Dr. Frazier, the Robert M. and Shirley S. Siff Chair in Autism, professor of psychiatry and pediatrics and executive director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center, led the study with Mike O’Shea, MD, of the University of North Carolina. The research was supported by the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes research program of the National Institutes of Health.
Researchers collected data from the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes research program between 2009 and 2021 on 4,595 children and adolescents. They examined maternal factors before and during pregnancy and used the Child Behavior Checklist to identify children (ages 6 to 18) who had emotional, cognitive and behavioral dysregulation. According to the study, about 13 percent of the children and adolescents studied were identified as having emotional, cognitive and behavioral challenges.
Several risk factors associated with inflammation, such as lower maternal educational attainment, pre-pregnancy obesity, prenatal infections and prenatal tobacco use, were strongly correlated with dysregulation in offspring. The study found children born to mothers with a prenatal infection had a higher risk for dysregulation later in childhood compared to children born to mothers without an infection. Lower maternal education levels, being overweight before pregnancy and smoking during pregnancy were also associated with a higher likelihood of childhood dysregulation. Children and adolescents who had a parent or sibling with a mental health disorder were also more likely to experience dysregulation. However, having a mother with gestational diabetes had no significant association with child dysregulation.
“Understanding how these factors can affect a child’s behavior can help guide interventions and support strategies to improve children’s well-being,” said Frazier. “These risk factors could be targets for interventions to improve offspring’s behavioral outcomes.”
