The Pertinent Prenatal Period: A Secondary Analysis Examining the Relationship Between Prenatal Maternal Anxiety and Child Language Development at 18 Months

Abstract

Maternal mental health is thought to be an important factor that may shape child development as early as the prenatal period. Prenatal maternal mental health has been linked to both physiological and factors that are theorized to explain the links between mental health and child language development. Whereas some past research has examined the associations between prenatal mental health and child language development, most have examined broad measures that include both anxiety and depression. Given that there are distinct mechanisms by which these aspects of maternal mental health are hypothesized to impact development, this study aims to parse the association between anxiety and child language development specifically. This study utilized data from a longitudinal prospective study to examine the associations between prenatal anxiety and child language development at 18 months in 167 families. We conducted a series of three regression models beginning with a simple linear regression examining prenatal anxiety and language development, followed by two models, first adding demographic covariates, then including prenatal depression. We did not find associations between maternal anxiety and child language development; inadvertently raising the question of when and by which mechanisms maternal mental health may or may not impact aspects of child development, which are crucial answers to be discerned in order to determine the most effective way to support pregnant mothers and their children throughout the prenatal period.