Abstract summary 

Over the past five decades the bulk of research on exposure to maternal mental health disorders and infant neurodevelopment has been generated in high-income countries. The current study included infants, residing in low-income communities in South Africa, born to mothers with a history of psychiatric disorders.To assess the motor behavior of 10- to 20-week-old infants exposed to maternal mental health disorders, and a subgroup of infants with prenatal psychotropic medication exposure.The present study is a cross-sectional descriptive study, with a longitudinal subgroup analysis. General Movement Assessment (GMA), including the Motor Optimality Score-Revised (MOS-R), was used at 10-20 weeks corrected age to assess infant motor behavior.The study included 112 infants. No significant difference (p = 0.523) was found on the MOS-R between infants exposed to maternal mental health disorders (n = 70) and the comparison group (n = 42). Both the exposed and comparison groups scored within the mildly reduced range on the MOS-R. No significant differences were found in a subgroup of infants with prenatal exposure to multi-class psychotropic medication (n = 17), mono-class psychotropic medication (n = 35) or valproate exposure (n = 10) (p > 0.1).No association was found between exposure to maternal mental health disorders or exposure to psychotropic medication and infant motor behavior at 10-20 weeks post-term age on the MOS-R. Future research should focus on the contribution of exposure to specific classes and types of psychotropic medication on neurodevelopmental outcome of infants in larger cohorts.

Authors & Co-authors:  Burger Marlette M Einspieler Christa C Jordaan Esme R ER Unger Marianne M Niehaus Dana J H DJH

Study Outcome 

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