Research confirms that positive mental health in mothers is linked to brain development in children

Pregnancy brings profound changes, and nurturing positive mental health during this period is crucial for the long-term health and well-being of children. Through early childhood research, Prof. Qiu Anqi, Professor of the Department of Health Technology and Informatics and Global Stem Scholar at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), and her research group have validated the impact of maternal positive emotions on children’s brain development and function.

According to Prof. Qiu’s research, girls whose mothers reported experiencing more positive mental health during pregnancy showed larger bilateral hippocampi. Larger hippocampal volume is directly related to improvements in memory performance.

Significantly, children of mothers with higher levels of positive maternal mental health showed altered functional connectivity within several neural networks, including the default mode, salience, executive control, amygdala, and thalamo-hippocampal networks. These networks have been linked to a wide range of cognitive, emotional, and memory-related brain development and functions.

Positive maternal mental health has long-lasting effects on offspring brain development. These effects are particularly pronounced in brain structures such as the hippocampus and amygdala, as well as functional networks such as the visual, default mode, and frontal networks, which are integral to emotion perception and regulation.

Prof. Qiu said: “The research findings extend the study of maternal mental health beyond maternal psychopathology. This suggests that it is important to promote positive maternal mental health during pregnancy as a potential protective factor for children’s brain development.”

The study provided new evidence that enhanced maternal positive emotions during pregnancy can promote children’s hippocampal development. Therefore, maternal positive emotions have a significant impact on the quality of the parenting relationship after childbirth, including greater material sensitivity, warmth, and responsiveness to the child’s needs, as well as improved child socioeconomic development.

The study used a longitudinal dataset to investigate how positive emotions experienced by mothers during pregnancy affect the brain structure and function of 7.5-year-old children. Both structural and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) were used in the study involving 381 Asian participants in Singapore. The study, titled “Maternal positive mental health during pregnancy impacts the hippocampus and functional brain networks in children,” was published in Nature Mental Health.

A measure of positive maternal mental health, encompassing positive effects and emotional well-being during pregnancy, was developed through confirmatory factor analysis of questionnaires administered at weeks 26–28. The study results highlight the importance of examining a broader spectrum of aspects of mental health than illness alone, advocating positive emotions among mothers.

“Our study further confirmed the importance of positive mental health and well-being during pregnancy, which is also an important determinant of children’s brain development,” said Prof. Qiu. Her research areas focus on brain development and the use of artificial intelligence to predict and analyze mental health problems in young people.