Maternal mindfulness and anxiety during pregnancy affect infants' neural responses to sounds

Abstract

Maternal anxiety during pregnancy has been consistently shown to negatively affect offspring neurodevelopmental outcomes. However, little is known about the impact of positive maternal traits/states during pregnancy on the offspring. The present study was aimed at investigating the effects of the mother's mindfulness and anxiety during pregnancy on the infant's neurocognitive functioning at 9 months of age. Mothers reported mindfulness using the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory and anxiety using the Symptom Checklist (SCL-90) at ± 20.7 weeks of gestation. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were measured from 79 infants in an auditory oddball paradigm designed to measure auditory attention-a key aspect of early neurocognitive functioning. For the ERP responses elicited by standard sounds, higher maternal mindfulness was associated with lower N250 amplitudes (P < 0.01, η(2) = 0.097), whereas higher maternal anxiety was associated with higher N250 amplitudes (P < 0.05, η(2) = 0.057). Maternal mindfulness was also positively associated with the P150 amplitudes (P < 0.01, η(2) = 0.130). These results suggest that infants prenatally exposed to higher levels of maternal mindfulness devote fewer attentional resources to frequently occurring irrelevant sounds. The results show that positive traits and experiences of the mother during pregnancy may also affect the unborn child. Emphasizing the beneficial effects of a positive psychological state during pregnancy may promote healthy behavior in pregnant women.

Keywords: anxiety; auditory attention; cognitive development; event-related potential; infant; mindfulness.

© The Author (2014). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Figures

Fig. 1

Flowchart of inclusion and exclusion of the participating mothers–infant dyads.

Fig. 2

Group-average (N = 79) ERP responses to standard tones, ISI-deviants, novel sounds and white noise segments (columns) at electrodes F3, Fz, F4, C3, Cz, C4, P3, Pz, P4 (rows).

Fig. 3

Group-average (N = 79) central (Cz) ERP response to the standard sound of infants of mothers with low (blue line) and high (green line) mindfulness (A) and anxiety (B). The scatterplots shows the correlation between maternal mindfulness and the amplitude of (C) the first positive-going wave ‘P150’ (measured from the 100–200 ms post-stimulus interval) and (D) the first negative-going wave ‘N250’ (200–320 ms). Panel (E) shows the scatterplot for the correlation between maternal anxiety and the amplitude of the ‘N250’ component. Notes: The statistical analyses were performed with mindfulness and anxiety as continuous predictors (C, D and E). Panels A and B are for illustration purposes only.