Abstract
The mental health of a woman can be important not only for herself but also for her child. This is especially so during pregnancy and the early postnatal period. While postnatal maternal depression can impair her mothering and thus affect the child via psychological mechanisms, changes in her mood during pregnancy can change her physiology, and this in turn can affect fetal development.In this chapter we will discuss the evidence that maternal mood during pregnancy can affect the outcome for her child. We will particularly focus on neurodevelopmental outcomes that have implications for psychology and psychiatry, although there is evidence that antenatal maternal stress and anxiety can also have other adverse effects such as causing preterm labour (Homer et al. 1990; Wadhwa et al. 2001.
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