Pregnant women who were distressed during the COVID-19 pandemic are more likely to give birth to babies with smaller brain volumes, with the most significant reduction occurring in the left amygdala, a recent JAMA Network Open cross-sectional study found. Women who were pregnant during the pandemic were more likely to report distress, which included stress, anxiety, and depression. These symptoms were then linked to babies being born with reduced cerebral white matter.
The authors speculated that such brain differences may affect children’s long-term development, including cognitive abilities, mental health, and behavior. Upon studying magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of newborns’ brains, the researchers identified significant brain differences in children born before the COVID-19 pandemic versus during it. The authors attributed this difference to maternal stress.
“Intrauterine stressors have been shown to influence fetal brain development and affect how the child, once born, grows and develops,” the authors wrote. “Maternal psychological distress during pregnancy, including stress, anxiety, and depression, is recognized as one such stressor on early brain development.” According to the authors, studies evaluating prepandemic pregnancy stress linked it to reduced left hippocampal volume in infants.
The hippocampus is responsible for forming and storing memories. Contrastingly, pregnancy stress during the pandemic was associated with “selectively stunted fetal c.
