About this Research Topic
This Research Topic intends to disseminate studies regarding maternal mental health during pregnancy and after delivery and its impact on infant and child development. These studies point to the prenatal period as a crucial time for both the mother and the unborn child. During pregnancy, environmental factors can have an impact on the health of expectant mothers and newborns. Specifically, the environment that expectant mothers are exposed to might have an imprint on the fetal physiology that will persist throughout the child's life. Following the developmental origin of health and disease (DOHaD) theory, also referred to as the fetal programming hypothesis, this process takes place during perinatal development and involves epigenetics to determine an individual's health and disease throughout their extrauterine life. More precisely, according to the DOHaD hypothesis, the fetal and neonatal DNA undergoes epigenetic modifications in response to external stimuli.
This special issue aims to gather original research papers and review articles focused on maternal mental health during pregnancy and after delivery and its impact on infant and child development. More specifically, it intends to explore and identify the effects of anxiety, stress, and depression in pregnancy and the postpartum period on adverse child developmental outcomes.
The content of this Special Issue covers developmental screening and assessment, pediatric developmental topics, stress, depression, anxiety, and psychological and/or medical determinants of pregnant women's and children's health. Studies that include the DOHaD hypothesis and analyze, define, or review the epigenetic adaptations that are made to the fetal/neonatal DNA in response to environmental influences, are highly appreciated.
Keywords: Maternal distress, anxiety, depression, stress, fetal programming hypotheses, Infant development, child development, pregnancy
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.