THE stress a woman feels during pregnancy can affect the developing brain of her unborn child as documented on fetal brain scans, according to a new study published Monday in the medical journal JAMA Open Network.

Fetuses of expectant moms with higher anxiety levels were more likely to have weaker connections between two brain areas involved in executive and higher cognitive functions and stronger connections between parts of the brain connected to emotional and behavioral controls.

The study echoes other recent research that has found a direct impact of maternal stress on a baby’s future development.

“Toxic levels of anxiety ... appear to be having direct effects on the way the fetal brain is being sculpted and organized in utero,” said study author Catherine Limperopoulos, who directs the Developing Brain Institute at Children’s National in Washington, D.C.

“What the expectant mother is experiencing, the unborn baby is experiencing as well,” Limperopoulos said.

A “toxic” level of anxiety in the study was defined as stress at levels that would interfere with a woman’s ability to successfully go about her day-to-day roles and responsibilities, but not enough to be clinically diagnosed as a mental health illness or disorder.

Stress causes the pituitary and adrenal glands to flood the body with “fight-or-flight” hormones originally meant to help us escape from wild animals and other dangers. Today, we live with chronic stress, and those chemicals, which include the stress hormone cortisol, have the ability to cross the placental barrier between mom and baby.

The link between stress and fetal brain development is especially disturbing for women who are pregnant during the pandemic, Limperopoulos said, as her prior research has found stress for pregnant women in the era of COVID-19 has doubled or even tripled.

“And there’s other published studies confirming that pregnant women are reporting very high levels of stress during the pandemic,” she said.

“There’s a critical take-home message here,” Limperopoulos added. “It is really important that we are alerting women to the fact that high levels of stress may have an effect on their baby’s development and direct them to resources that can help them better manage their stress during this pandemic and beyond.”

Prior research has linked stress, anxiety and depression in pregnant mothers to social, emotional and behavioral problems in their offspring at later ages. Clinical studies have found neurobehavioral deficits, such as impaired motor coordination, higher emotional reactivity and language delays in children born to stressed mothers.

“We really need to be paying attention to mental health problems during pregnancy, because they’re not only affecting the pregnant women but they seem to have enduring effects on the baby in the months and probably years down the line,” Limperopoulos added.(SD-Agencies)