Abstract
The evidence supporting the idea that natural disaster-related prenatal maternal stress (PNMS) influences the child’s development has been accumulating for several years. We conducted a meta-analytical review to quantify this effect on different spheres of child development: birth outcomes, cognitive, motor, physical, socio-emotional, and behavioral development. We systematically searched the literature for articles on this topic (2756 articles retrieved and 37 articles included in the systematic review), extracted the relevant data to calculate the effect sizes, and then performed a meta-analysis for each category of outcomes (30 articles included across the meta-analyses) and meta-regressions to determine the effect of some factors of interest on the association between PNMS and child development: type of PNMS (objective, psychological, cognitive, diet), type of natural disaster (ice storm, flood/cyclone), type of report (maternal, third-party observer, medical), timing of exposure (preconception exposure included or not) and child age at assessment (under 10 or 10 years and older). We found that PNMS significantly influences all spheres of child development. Higher PNMS levels were associated with longer gestational age, larger newborns, and higher BMI and adiposity levels, as well as worse cognitive, motor, socio-emotional, and behavioral outcomes.
Highlights
We considered the following effect measures: prenatal maternal stress (PNMS) type, age of the child at assessment, timing of exposure in pregnancy, type of natural disaster, and whether the outcomes of interest were maternal-rated, third-party observer rated, or from a medical report
We found a significant effect of psychological distress on all child development outcomes except for the birth outcomes for which we could not test the meta-regression with this category of PNMS due to too few cases
For the types of outcomes for which we were able to include a cognitive appraisal in our meta-regression analyses, we found no significant relationship between this type of PNMS and the development of the child
Summary
Evidence suggests that prenatal maternal stress (PNMS) is associated with suboptimal development in children [1]. In the PNMS literature, “stress” is a broadly defined concept encompassing anxiety, depression, and exposure to stressful life events. The association between PNMS and socioemotional problems is stronger for prenatal maternal depression (OR = 1.79; 95% CI = 1.61–1.99) than for prenatal maternal anxiety (OR = 1.50; 95% CI = 1.36–1.64) [2]. Another form of maternal stress that has been studied in recent years, and is associated with global warming, is natural disasters. The overall magnitude of the effects of disaster-related PNMS on child outcomes has yet to be calculated
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