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Sensorimotor and cognitive development of infants of mothers with schizophrenia
Insights
Maternal schizophrenia may impact infant cognitive development, but this effect disappears when considering birth weight and social class. Environmental factors like maternal lifestyle may play a role in cognitive outcomes.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Psychiatry
- Pediatrics
Background:
- Maternal schizophrenia is hypothesized to influence offspring cognitive development.
- Parenting environments may mediate the relationship between maternal mental illness and child outcomes.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine the impact of maternal schizophrenia, obstetric factors, and lifestyle on infant cognitive development.
- To differentiate the effects of maternal mental illness from other contributing factors.
Main Methods:
- Bayley Scales of Infant Development administered at two and seven months.
- Study included infants of mothers with schizophrenia, non-psychotic depression, affective psychosis, and normal controls.
- Controlled for infant birth weight and maternal social class in analyses.
Main Results:
- Infants of mothers with schizophrenia and affective psychosis showed lower Mental Development Index (MDI) scores at two months.
- At seven months, infants of mothers with schizophrenia had significantly lower MDI scores compared to all other groups.
- Maternal schizophrenia's effect on infant MDI scores was not significant after accounting for birth weight and social class.
Conclusions:
- Infants born to mothers with schizophrenia may experience impaired cognitive development.
- Environmental factors, including maternal lifestyle, may contribute to observed cognitive differences.
- The direct impact of maternal schizophrenia on infant cognition is less clear when controlling for socioeconomic and perinatal factors.
Background:
The parenting environment provided by mothers with schizophrenia is likely to contribute to the cognitive impairment observed in their offspring.
Aims:
To assess the relative contribution of maternal schizophrenia, obstetric factors and mothers' lifestyle to the cognitive development of infants in their first year.
Method:
The Bayley Scales of Infant Development were administered to 19 infants of mothers with schizophrenia, 34 with non-psychotic depression in the mother, 29 with affective psychosis in the mother and 24 normal controls when the babies were two and seven months of age.
Results:
At two months, infants of mothers with schizophrenia and of those with affective psychosis had lower mental development index (MDI) scores than controls. At seven months, infants of mothers with schizophrenia had lower MDI scores than all other groups. When infant birth weight and mothers' social class were taken into account there was no effect of maternal schizophrenia on infants' MDI scores.
Conclusions:
Infants of mothers with schizophrenia are likely to have impaired cognitive development. This may be due in part to environmental factors such as the mother's lifestyle.