Trusted Information for Healthy Pregnancies
behavior
Heavier Birth Weight Tied to Later Conduct Troubles
May 6th
Among twins whose weight differs markedly at birth, the heavier child is more likely to have conduct problems at ages 3 and 4, a new study finds.
"The findings suggest an effect of birth weight differences on development of subsequent conduct problems," researchers led by Dr. David Mankuta of Hadassah Hebrew University Hospital in Jerusalem, said in a news release. "Further studies are needed to clarify the mediating factors of this effect."
The team studied 112 pairs of Israeli twins in which one weighed at least 20 percent more than the other. The twins were born in 2004 and 2005.
The researchers found that the heavier twin had more conduct problems in 41 percent of the twin pairs. The twin who weighed less had more conduct problems in only 21 percent of the cases.
The study findings were published in the May issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
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Depression while pregnant ‘linked to violent behaviour in children’
Feb 5th
Mothers who suffer from 'baby blues' while pregnant are four times as likely to have children who become violent teenagers, a new study shows.
The link remained even if the mothers did not suffer depression after their children were born.
Research has previously suggested that postnatal depression can affect a child's subsequent behavior.
But experts from Cardiff and Bristol universities and King's College London believe that theirs is one of the first studies to look at the effects of suffering depression before a child's birth.
Many women are depressed during their pregnancy and research by Tommy's, the baby charity, suggests that it may even be more common before the birth of a child than after.
It is estimated that as many as between 10 and 15 per cent of women could suffer the condition while they are expecting.
Prof Dale F Hay, from Cardiff University, who led the latest study, said: "Much attention has been given to the effects of postnatal depression on young infants, but depression during pregnancy may also affect the unborn child."
The study looked at 120 mothers from the Bristol area.
The researchers interviewed the women while they were pregnant, after they gave birth and when their children were aged four, 11, and 16 years old.
Their findings, published in the journal Child Development, show that women who were depressed while they were pregnant were four times as likely to have children who were violent by the age of 16 as the other mothers.
The children were also more likely to exhibit other forms of anti-social behavior, the research found.
However, the study also found that women who had been angry or disruptive teenagers themselves were more likely to go on to be depressed while they were pregnant.
Prof Hay added: "Although it's not yet clear exactly how depression in pregnancy might set infants on a pathway toward increased anti-social behavior, our findings suggest that women with a history of conduct problems who become depressed in pregnancy may be in special need of support."
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Pot smoking during pregnancy may stunt fetal growth
Jan 22nd
Women who smoke marijuana during pregnancy may impair their baby's growth and development in the womb, a new study suggests.
Poor fetal growth and reduced head circumference at birth are linked to an increased risk of problems with thinking, memory and behavior in childhood. Cigarette smoking during pregnancy is known to impair fetal growth, but studies on the potential effects of marijuana have been inconclusive.
For the new study, researchers in the Netherlands followed more than 7,000 pregnant women, 3 percent of whom acknowledged smoking marijuana at least during early pregnancy. They found that babies born to marijuana users tended to weigh less and have smaller heads than other infants.
What's more, the study found, the longer a woman had used marijuana during pregnancy, the stronger the impact on birth size - suggesting that the drug itself was to blame.
And while most marijuana users in the study also smoked cigarettes, the drug appeared to have effects over and above those of tobacco. In fact, marijuana showed stronger effects on birth size than tobacco, the investigators report in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
The findings suggest that marijuana use, even restricted to early pregnancy, may have irreversible effects on fetal growth, write the researchers, led by Hannan El Marroun of Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam.
The study included almost 7,500 pregnant women who were surveyed on their use of alcohol, tobacco and drugs, and had ultrasounds to chart fetal growth during the first, second and third trimesters.
Overall, 214 women said they had used marijuana before and during early pregnancy; 81 percent quit after learning they were pregnant, but 41 women continued to smoke marijuana throughout pregnancy.
The researchers found that, on average, marijuana users gave birth to smaller babies, particularly those who had used throughout pregnancy.
Women who had smoked only during early pregnancy had babies who were 156 grams -- about 5.5 ounces -- lighter than infants born to women who had not used the drug. Women who had continued to smoke past early pregnancy had babies who were 277 grams, or nearly 10 ounces, smaller.
Based on ultrasound, marijuana use only in early pregnancy impaired fetal growth by about 11 grams per week, while use throughout pregnancy slowed fetal growth by roughly 14 grams per week. That compared with a deficit of 4 grams per week with tobacco use, the researchers found.
Similar patterns were seen when the researchers looked at fetal head circumference.
According to El Marroun's team, mothers' marijuana use could stunt fetal growth for several reasons. Like tobacco smoking, it may deprive the fetus of oxygen. It is also possible that the byproducts of marijuana directly affect the developing nervous and hormonal systems of the fetus.
Finally, the researchers note, pregnant women who use marijuana may have other factors in their lives - such as a less-than-healthy diet or chronic stress -- that could contribute to poor fetal growth.
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ADHD linked to obesity during pregnancy
Jan 6th
Children are at double the risk of displaying symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder if their mother was overweight or obese when she became pregnant, according to European research.
It confirms for the first time in a large-scale study a suspected link between mothers' weight and children's mental health.
The study of nearly 2000 Swedish children identified a reduced ability to pay attention at school or preschool among those whose mothers had been overweight. This was even after taking into account the possible effects of mothers' mental health - which could influence the children's upbringing - and the children's own weight.
Children of obese mothers were also twice as likely to express negative emotions such as sadness and fear, and to have difficulty dealing with these appropriately, according to the research by Alina Rodriguez, a psychologist from the University of Uppsala. Her study followed the health of children from the first weeks of their mother's pregnancy through to age five.
Dr Rodriguez said a possible explanation was that excess weight might disrupt mothers' metabolism, making it harder for nutrients essential to brain development to reach the foetus.
Pregnancy puts huge stress on the metabolism, she said, and excessive weight gain might throw it out of balance - perhaps by raising mothers' levels of blood glucose, or of the hormone leptin.
Alternatively, the findings might result from inadequate vitamin D - which is linked to mental development and is known to be present in lower levels in overweight women - or from greater exposure to damaging chemicals, which accumulate in body fat.
Dr Rodriguez said her results, published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, could not prove whether maternal obesity caused the problems.
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Aspirin During Pregnancy May Help Preemies
Dec 29th
The children of women who take low-dose aspirin during pregnancy because they are at high risk for delivering prematurely might have fewer behavioral problems at age 5, new research suggests.
Obstetricians sometimes give low-dose aspirin to pregnant women who are apt to have such complications as fetal growth restriction (when a fetus doesn't grow properly in the womb) or preeclampsia (high blood pressure that's dangerous to both mother and the fetus), said Dr. Ashley Roman, a clinical assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at NYU Langone Medical Center. Roman was not involved in the research.
In the study, French researchers used data on 656 children born before 33 weeks of gestation to 584 women from nine regions in France. A full-term birth is at 40 weeks' gestation. The women had a history of placental vascular disease, fetal growth restriction, chronic hypertension, and renal or autoimmune diseases.
About 21 percent of the women took low-dose aspirin during pregnancy.
At age 5, children whose mothers had taken aspirin were slightly less likely to have behavioral difficulties or hyperactivity, though the results were not statistically significant, according to the study.
In addition, the babies whose mothers had taken aspirin faced no increased risk for death, cerebral lesions or cerebral palsy.
One of the fears of giving aspirin to women during pregnancy is that aspirin interferes with platelet function, which is important for blood clotting. Because of that, it could raise the risk for brain bleeds in already susceptible premature infants, Roman said. The study found no increase in the risk for brain bleeds.
The study findings are published online Dec. 21 and in the January print issue of the journal Pediatrics.
Still, much remains unknown about the role of aspirin in pregnancy, including exactly how well or why aspirin works, Roman noted. One theory is that fetal growth restriction might be caused by tiny blood clots in the placenta, and aspirin helps blood flow between the placenta and the fetus. Low-dose aspirin is also taken by adult men and women at risk for heart attack and stroke.
Dr. Michael Katz, senior vice president for research and global programs at the March of Dimes, said the study is intriguing, but the findings are too preliminary to be of much help to women or their physicians. Many women in the study were also given other drugs, including corticosteroids, and it's unknown how much that affected the outcomes.
"Behavioral difficulties," as cited in the study, is a broad term that could encompass everything from excessive temper tantrums to learning disabilities to hyperactivity to autism, he said, each of which could have very different underlying causes.
Premature babies are at higher risk for neurological problems, including learning disabilities, cerebral palsy, and hearing and vision problems.
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Premature Birth Tied to Later Behavioral Problems
Dec 16th
Children who were born prematurely and at a very low weight may have an increased risk of certain behavior problems and symptoms of depression and anxiety, research suggests.
As the survival rates of very preterm newborns have improved in recent years, studies have uncovered some of the potential long-term challenges these infants will face - including lower IQ and higher rates of behavioral problems compared with their peers born at term.
In the new study, researchers found that among 104 7- to 16-year-olds they assessed, the 49 who were born very prematurely had higher rates of hyperactivity and attention problems, as well as symptoms of depression and anxiety.
The higher risk was not explained by lower IQ scores, however. Nor was families' socioeconomic status an important factor in children's odds of behavioral or emotional issues.
Instead, birth weight itself was the strongest factor, the researchers report in the journal Pediatrics.
The finding "suggests that in children born prematurely, behavioral issues might be more biologically based and not easily compensated for by improvements in the environment," explained lead researcher Dr. Amy L. Conrad, of the University of Iowa College of Medicine in Iowa City.
"It does not mean that environment can't help," she told Reuters Health in an email, "just that it might not have as strong of an impact as for children born at term and of average birth weight."
In addition, while the study found that parents of premature children reported more behavioral and emotional symptoms than other parents did, most kids did not have significant problems.
According to Conrad, 18 percent of preterm children had hyperactivity/inattention problems that were in the "clinical range" -- or significant enough to warrant therapy -- while 14 percent had depression or anxiety symptoms in that range.
For the study, Conrad's team had 104 children and teenagers take standard intelligence tests, while their parents and teachers completed a standard questionnaire on behavioral issues. Forty-nine of the kids had been born significantly preterm -- between the 24th and 33rd week of pregnancy. A normal pregnancy lasts 40 weeks.
Their birth weights ranged from "extremely low" -- less than 2.2 pounds -- to "very low," or between 2.2 and 3.3 pounds.
In general, parents of preterm children reported more behavioral issues than parents of children born full-term, with the highest rates among children with extremely low birth weights. The link between birth weight and behavior did not fade after the researchers factored in children's age, gender, IQ and socioeconomic status.
It's possible that very low birth weight affected some children's brain development in a way that made them more vulnerable to behavioral problems.
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Alcohol in Pregnancy has Variety of Possible Effects
Nov 23rd
A new study from Perth's Telethon Institute for Child Health Research has found evidence that the amount and timing of alcohol consumption in pregnancy affects child behavior in different ways.
The study has just been published online in the international journal Addiction.
Lead author Colleen O'Leary said the analysis was drawn from a random sample of more than 2000 mothers who completed a questionnaire three months after the baby's delivery, and were then followed up when the child was 2, 5 and 8 years of age.
"Mothers who reported what we would classify as heavy drinking in the first trimester of pregnancy were nearly three times as likely to report that their child suffered with anxiety and/or depression or somatic complaints," Ms O'Leary said.
“Those who drank moderately during that first trimester were twice as likely to report those types of behavioral issues for their child.
“Exposure to moderate or heavy levels of alcohol in late pregnancy increased the risk of aggressive types of behaviors in the child.
“This research suggests that both the timing and the intensity of alcohol exposure in the womb affect the type of behaviour problems expressed.”
In this study low levels of alcohol did not increase the risk of harm to the baby. However, the evidence clearly shows that the risk to the baby increases with increasing amounts consumed.
“It should also be noted that in this study moderate exposure is classified as drinking 3-4 standard drinks per occasion- that's about two normal glasses of wine-and no more than a bottle of wine drunk over a week.”
Heavy drinking included women who were drinking the equivalent of more than a bottle of wine per week.
“Not every child will be affected by prenatal exposure to alcohol. However it is important that women have this information about increased risk so that they can make informed decisions to give their child the best start to life,” Ms O'Leary said.
The National Health and Medical Research Council recommend that the safest choice for women who are pregnant or planning a pregnancy is to abstain from alcohol.
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Phthalates in Pregnant Women Affect Masculinity of Baby Boys
Nov 16th
The fact that hormone-disrupting chemicals present in various household products are interfering with the development of children has been substantiated by researchers at the University of Rochester in New York State, who have reported that baby boys born to mothers with above-normal levels of 'phthalates' generally depict less masculine behavior.
The study, published in the International Journal of Andrology, states that phthalates block the activity of male hormones like androgens, thereby changing masculine brain development.
The findings of the study were based on a phthalate-tracing test that the researchers conducted on the urine samples from mothers in the 28th week of pregnancy. The women, who gave birth to 74 boys and 71 girls, during 2000-2003, were contacted again by researchers, who then inquired from the mothers about the personalities of their toddlers, the kind of toys and activities they liked.
It was found that boys born to mothers with high phthalate levels were less likely to play with guns, cars, and trains; and mostly indulged in “gender neutral” activities, like sports.
The study’s lead author, Shanna H. Swan, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Rochester Medical Center, said that the results of the study are “consistent with our prior findings that link phthalates to altered male genital development,” as well as “compatible with current knowledge about how hormones mold sex differences in the brain, and thus behavior.”
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Low Folate Levels in Pregnancy Tied to ADHD
Nov 4th
Low folate levels during pregnancy are associated with higher odds for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in offspring aged 7 to 9, new research has found.
The findings seem to support the long-held belief that folate (folic acid) levels in expectant mothers influence their children's nervous system development.
The researchers also found that children of mothers with low folate levels had notably smaller head circumference at birth, which may indicate a slower rate of prenatal brain growth.
The study was released online Oct. 28 in advance of publication in an upcoming print issue of the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.
The results are special cause for concern in relation to low-income families, where a mother's nutritional health receives a low priority, and women are less likely to take folic acid supplements prior to becoming pregnant.
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