Scientists are continuously studying the brain’s development among growing young teenagers. They are finding the connection between student’s academic performance and their mothers mental health during their development phase in the womb. Early parental care has been studied to affect the child’s outcomes over their growing years.

Scientists at University of Bristol, has found the inter-connection between perinatal maternal depression and poor academic achievements in adolescence. The study found that adolescents that have grown with postnatally depressed mothers were 1.5 times were more prone to fail in maths. These youngsters lacked attention by 16% as well as cognitive memory by 17% owing to its association with postnatal depression and antenatal anxiety. Similar patterns were studied for languages but they aligned more with the maternal education. On the other hand, association with paternal factors were least associated with impaired child’s executive function (EF) at age 8 or adolescent exams. In addition, improving the executive function in children, described as general-purpose control processes that regulate thoughts and behaviours, could increase the probability of child’s achievements.

Detailed Study:

• A prospective longitudinal cohort study was designed with 14,541 pregnant women. Out of these 5,801 parents and adolescents’ data was imputed.
• The cases included only singleton births while data was drawn from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) in the UK that recorded children’s growth from the perinatal period through age 16.
• Maternal depression was assessed using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) at 8 weeks, 8 months, 1.5 years, and 2.5 years.
• Maternal Antenatal Anxiety was assessed during pregnancy using anxiety items from the Crown–Crisp Experiential Index.
• Paternal depression and anxiety were also assessed as negative control for comparison.
• Further executive function was assessed at age 8 using standardized cognitive tasks like:

  Working memory

• Digit span task (WISC-III)
• Nonword repetition task

  Attentional switching

• Dual-task “Sky Search” (TEA-Ch)

  Attentional control (inhibition)

• “Opposite Worlds” task (Stroop-like)
• Additional cognitive control was also assessed like:
• Selective attention
• Processing speed (verbal and motor)
• Child IQ (WISC-III)
• Academic achievement was measured using official national exam records:
• Mathematics GCSE grades
• English Language GCSE grades

Two outcomes were analyzed:

• Binary: Pass (A*–C) vs Fail
• Continuous grade score (1–10 scale)

Key Findings:

The study imparts light on the importance of identifying and treating maternal mental health including postnatal depression and antenatal anxiety in the perinatal period itself, to increase the chances of academic achievements of child in their critical grades at ages of 16 and 18 years. In addition, the study also highlights that by improving executive function could increase the probability of child’s achievements.