This study aimed to verify the course of maternal anxiety disorders and its impact on child development of toddlers. This is a cohort study that followed 497 pregnant adolescents who received antenatal care in the public health service in a southern city in Brazil. We assessed maternal anxiety disorders during gestation, postpartum, and when…

The proposed study sought to investigate whether maternal experiences of racial discrimination and gendered racial stress are associated with offspring executive functioning. Total 266 Black mother-child pairs in the United States were assessed from pregnancy through child age of 4 years. We hypothesized that children whose mothers reported higher…

Research has documented elevated experiences of racial discrimination among African American families, and its adverse impacts on their psychological well-being. However, most studies have investigated the experiences of and consequences for older children and adults. The goal of the current study was to examine the relations among mothers'…

A double-blind randomized controlled trial of n-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid (n-3 LCPUFA) supplementation or matching placebo during third trimester of pregnancy was conducted within the COPSAC[subscript 2010] mother-child cohort consisting of 736 women and their children. The objective was to determine if maternal n-3 LCPUFA pregnancy…

Foetal growth restriction is associated with problems in neurocognitive development. In the present study, prospectively collected cohorts of foetal growth restricted (FGR) and appropriate for gestational age grown (AGA) children were examined at early school-age by using the Children's Communication Checklist-2 (CCC-2) to test the hypothesis that…

Fetal exposure to prenatal maternal stress can have lifelong consequences, with different types of maternal stress associated with different areas of child development. Fewer studies have focused on motor skills, even though they are strongly predictive of later development across a range of domains. Research on mechanisms of transmission has…

Emotion regulation is essential to cognitive, social, and emotional development and difficulties with emotion regulation portend future socioemotional, academic, and behavioral difficulties. There is growing awareness that many developmental outcomes previously thought to begin their development in the postnatal period have their origins in the…

Early Head Start (EHS) is an evidence-based, federally funded, and community-based program with a two-generation approach to child development for children under age 3 and pregnant women in poverty. The mission of EHS is to support healthy prenatal outcomes; enhance the intellectual, social, and emotional development of infants and toddlers; and…

In 2010, Congress authorized the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Program by enacting section 511 of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. § 711, which also appropriated funding for fiscal years 2010 through 2014. Subsequently enacted laws extended funding for the program through fiscal year 2022. The program is…

Background: Maternal depression is known to be associated with impairments in child cognitive development, although the effect of timing of exposure to maternal depression is unclear. Methods: Data collected for the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, a longitudinal study beginning in pregnancy, included self-report measures of…

The consequences of prenatal maternal stress for development were examined in 125 full-term infants at 3, 6, and 12 months of age. Maternal cortisol and psychological state were evaluated 5 times during pregnancy. Exposure to elevated concentrations of cortisol early in gestation was associated with a slower rate of development over the 1st year…

Fetal magnetoencephalography (fMEG) is the only non-invasive method for investigating evoked brain responses and spontaneous brain activity generated by the fetus "in utero". Fetal auditory as well as visual-evoked fields have been successfully recorded in basic stimulus-response studies. Moreover, paradigms investigating precursors for cognitive…

Pregnancy and early motherhood involve uncertainty and change, which can evoke mental health problems. We identified maternal mental health trajectories in pre- and postnatal period, and examined their association with later child mental health and development. Finnish mothers reported psychological distress (General Health Questionnaire [GHQ-36])…

Infant sleep is a major source of concern for many parents. The aims of this longitudinal study were to assess: (a) the development of sleep patterns among infants, (b) the development of maternal cognitions regarding infant sleep, and (c) the relations between these domains during the 1st year of life. Eighty-five mothers were recruited during…

Maternal alcohol consumption during pregnancy is a significant social problem associated with developmental difficulties in young children. Child developmental and behavioral characteristics were examined from the 9-month data point of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Studies-Birth Cohort, a prospective nationally representative study. Several…