COPENHAGEN – Exposure to maternal somatic anxiety during pregnancy and toddlerhood increases a child’s risk of hyperactivity symptoms in adolescence, Blanca Bolea, MD, said at the annual congress of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology.
Dr. Blanca Bolea
In contrast, the children of mothers who were anxious were not at increased risk for subsequent inattention symptoms in an analysis of 8,725 mothers and their children participating in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, a prospective epidemiologic cohort study ongoing in southwest England since 1991, said Dr. Bolea, a psychiatrist at the University of Toronto.
These findings have practical implications for clinical care: “If we know that women who are anxious in the perinatal period put their children at risk for hyperactivity later on, then we can tackle their anxiety in pregnancy or toddlerhood. And that’s easy to do: You can do group [cognitive-behavioral therapy]; you can give medications, so there are things you can do to reduce that risk. That’s relevant, because we don’t know much about how to reduce levels of ADHD. We know it has a genetic component, but we can’t touch that. You cannot change your genes, so far. But environmental things, we can change. So if we can identify the mothers who are more anxious during pregnancy and toddlerhood and give them resources to reduce their anxiety, then we can potentially reduce hyperactivity later on,” she explained in an interview.
In the Avon study, maternal anxiety was serially assessed from early pregnancy up until a child’s 5th birthday.
“We looked for maternal symptoms similar to panic disorder: shortness of breath, dizziness, sweating, things like that. These are symptoms that any clinician can identify by asking the mothers, so it’s not hard to identify the mothers who could be at risk,” according to the psychiatrist.
Children in the Avon study were assessed for symptoms of inattention at age 8.5 years using the Sky Search, Sky Search Dual Test, and Opposite Worlds subtests of the Tests of Everyday Attention for Children. Hyperactivity symptoms were assessed at age 16 years via the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire.
In an analysis adjusted for potentially confounding sociodemographic factors, adolescents whose mothers were rated by investigators as having moderate or high somatic anxiety during pregnancy and the toddlerhood years were at 2.1-fold increased risk of hyperactivity symptoms compared to those whose mothers had low or no anxiety, but increased maternal anxiety wasn’t associated with scores on any of the three tests of inattention.
Dr. Bolea cautioned that, while these Avon study findings document an association between early maternal anxiety and subsequent adolescent hyperactivity, that doesn’t prove causality. The findings are consistent, however, with the fetal origins hypothesis put forth by the late British epidemiologist David J. Barker, MD, PhD, which postulates that stressful fetal circumstances have profound effects later in life.
she said.
The hypothesis has been borne out in animal studies: Stress a pregnant rat, and her offspring will display hyperactivity.
Dr. Bolea reported having no financial conflicts regarding her study. The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children is funded by the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust.