UniversityPrenatal Development and Mental Disorders
Environmental factors including socioeconomic status, trauma and parenting practices play a crucial role in early childhood development. Even though they are important, the prenatal environment has become regarded as one of most crucial periods that can be influenced by these environmental factors. This is because during the prenatal period, environmental factors can significantly affect the development of the child, which will later have a significant impact on behavioral development later in life, implying a significant link between prenatal environment and a child’s mental health, which can specifically be impacted by various teratogens, or “any environmental agent that causes damage during the prenatal period,” (Berk & Meyers, 2015). This may include alcohol, tobacco, and prescription medication, as well as diseases, poor nutrition, and stressful life events such as poverty and trauma. The reason why I chose prenatal development is because I would like to describe how teratogens affect fetal development and investigate the link between prenatal environment and later mental health.
“Mental health problems in childhood and adolescence have a significant influence on mental health in later life, and mental health problems in childhood are known to predict other negative outcomes in later life, including school non-completion, physical health problems, drug and alcohol misuse, marital difficulties, increased mortality,” (Tearne et al., 2015, p. 1015), among other things. Mental disorders affect a person for life. Considering that mental health problems can affect a person for an entire lifetime, it is important to look into the causes of such issues. The prenatal time period that would be under risk is the fetal period, or after 10 weeks of gestation, when organs such as the brain are being developed (Berk & Meyers, 2015). Maternal risk factors, such as consuming alcohol and drugs, would put the fetus under serious risk of damage. Infants that have been exposed to maternal drug use during the prenatal period are shown to have below average intelligence when they are children. Too much alcohol consumption during pregnancy is known to contribute to birth defects, such as fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). Other issues that contribute to poor childhood health would be infectious diseases, such as the spread of HIV from mother to child.
As far as mental health is concerned in a child, it seems that there other factors might be involved that do not happen during prenatal development, including poor socioeconomic status. A poor environment can encourage depression and antisocial behavior in children and teens. Parental abuse and other family dysfunction during childhood can contribute to poor mental health later in life (Tearne et al., 2015). In other words, a child’s mental health can be negatively impacted by a stressful living environment after birth. But from the research done, this does not mean that a difficult prenatal experience will not negatively impact childhood and adolescent psychological development.
Maternal risk factors (teratogens) during the prenatal period can cause severe physical damages such as premature birth, low birthweight and a difficult and long labor during birth. These physical damages can also harm the development of the fetus enough to affect mental health. In fact, low birthweight and prenatal births “have moderate to severe deficits in attention, and increased levels of internalizing behaviors [and an] increased risk for diagnoses of emotional disorders, ADHD, an autism spectrum disorders at 11 years of age,” (Tearne et al., 2015, p. 1016). It is thus certainly true that a difficult and lengthy birth on its own can cause difficulties for proper mental health development for the child later in life.
I learned that mental disorders are often diagnosed during late childhood or early adolescence, and they normally are diagnosed after the start of less severe symptoms (Tearne et al., 2015). In other words, symptoms of mental health disorders may not show up during stages of early infancy after birth. They occur later in life. All in all, the diagnosis of a mental health disorder has to be considered over a long period of time, and must have persistent symptoms in order to be considered a disorder. In other words, it is suggestive that a high-risk pregnancy can cause mental health disorders that will put a child under severe mental health stress, with disorders such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) (Tearne et al., 2015).
Tearne et al. conducted a study of 2,900 mothers of different socioeconomic statuses, who all experienced difficult maternal risk factors that included substance abuse as well as stressful psychological factors such as divorce and job loss, and difficult physical factors such as high-risk pregnancies. Their pregnancies were studied over 18 weeks to determine different risk factors that can make a pregnancy risky. What was found was widespread mental health deterioration in children aged 8 to 14 years old from prenatal periods with stressful life environments, including having an income below the poverty level and a dysfunctional family life. This suggests “children born to families with low maternal education, low family income, and stressful life events appear to begin life at a disadvantage, and show worsening mental health trajectories through to adolescence,” (Tearne et al., 2015, p. 1022).
The results of the study also found that “demographic factors were more important in predicting child behavior than obstetric complications,” (Tearne et al., 2015, p. 1023). This means that a stressful life situation, including family abuse, substance abuse, and other external factors are much more influential on a child’s mental health than complications during childbirth. It is vital to consider that for mothers, behavioral problems such as depression can encourage destructive behaviors such as abusing drugs and alcohol. This would put mothers who are stressed about finances, family and marital strife, and personal issues are at a very high risk of turning their pregnancy into a very risky experience.
It is suggested that utmost care should be given to mothers during the prenatal period to prevent the onset of childhood and adolescent mental disorders. Tearne et al. state that “mental health prevention can begin during pregnancy [and] pointing towards the need for early intervention as a mechanism of dealing with mental health problems, as opposed to treating problems after they have developed,” (2015, p. 1022). This would mean the establishment of mental health care centers and aid for mothers under significant stress, and having programs that will give them access to good nutrition and medicine that can prevent diseases, and rehabilitation for mothers who are consuming harmful substances.
There are many factors that go into poor mental health for children, adolescents and adults. These factors include a stressful life environment, drug and alcohol abuse, disease, poverty, poor nutrition and emotional abuse. These bad factors can happen after birth and affect early childhood development. But more importantly, it can affect mothers during the prenatal periods, which can also have damaging effects on the children. I wanted to look into the damaging effects of teratogens on prenatal development to see how it can harm children later in life. Teratogens will negatively affect childbirth and cause birth defects. They will also damage brain development and activity during the gestation of the fetus. Mental health issues, such as permanent disorders like ADHD and FAS will affect children for their entire lives. As such, it is very important that mothers are well taken care of during the prenatal period in order to prevent increased diagnoses of mental health disorders in children and adolescents. As shown in this study, for mothers who are suffering teratogens during most of their pregnancies, it will negatively impact children and adolescents during development, and this will continue to hurt them into adulthood. For better childhood development, it is most important that poor mental health development should be prevented during the prenatal period.
References
Berk, L. E., & Meyers, A. B. (2015). Infants, Children, and Adolescents, 8th Edition. New York: Pearson. Electronic.
Tearne, J. E., Allen, K. L., & Herbison, C. E. (2015). The association between prenatal
environment and children’s mental health trajectories from 2 to 14 years. Early Childhood Adolescent Psychiatry, 24: 1015-1024.
