Summary: A large Danish study found that common infections during pregnancy, such as pneumonia and urinary tract infections, do not harm a child’s brain development or cognitive abilities later in life. Researchers analyzed data from over 270,000 children, comparing school exam results and intelligence test scores with records of maternal infections and antibiotic use during pregnancy.
They found no significant differences in academic or cognitive outcomes between children exposed to maternal infections and those who were not. The study also looked at sibling pairs to control for genetic and social factors, confirming the same results.
Key Facts:
- No Cognitive Impact: Maternal infections and antibiotic use during pregnancy were not linked to worse academic or intelligence outcomes.
- Sibling Analysis: Comparing siblings strengthened the findings by controlling for genetic and environmental factors.
- Medical Care Still Key: Prompt treatment of infections is important to prevent pregnancy complications, even if cognitive risks are minimal.
Source: Neuroscience News
Expectant parents often worry about the potential impact of infections and medications on their unborn child’s brain development.
But a large, nationwide study from Denmark offers reassuring news: common infections during pregnancy — including pneumonia, urinary tract infections, and other bacterial illnesses — do not appear to impair a child’s cognitive abilities or academic performance later in life.
The findings, published in PLOS Medicine, are based on detailed data from over 270,000 children born between 1996 and 2003.
Researchers examined Danish and mathematics grades from 9th-grade exams as well as intelligence test scores taken during military conscription for young men. They compared children whose mothers were hospitalized for infections or prescribed antibiotics during pregnancy with those who were not.
The results showed no significant differences in cognitive or academic outcomes, regardless of the timing of the infection during pregnancy.
“Our findings suggest that common infections and their treatment with antibiotics do not negatively affect fetal brain development,” said the study’s lead physician.
To strengthen their conclusions, the team also analyzed data on full siblings within families, an approach that helps control for shared genetic and environmental factors like parental education and home environment. Even in these sibling comparisons, no adverse effects of maternal infections were detected.
The findings highlight the value of population-wide registry data, which allowed researchers to rigorously assess outcomes across hundreds of thousands of pregnancies.
While the results are encouraging, medical experts still caution that infections during pregnancy should never be ignored. Untreated or severe infections can trigger preterm birth and other complications.
“These findings support the safety of typical antibiotic treatments in pregnancy, but pregnant women should always seek medical care if they experience symptoms of infection,” the researchers emphasized.
This study provides much-needed reassurance for pregnant women and healthcare providers alike, showing that common bacterial infections — and the antibiotics used to treat them — are not linked to lasting cognitive harm in children. It also underscores the importance of prompt diagnosis and treatment to protect both maternal and fetal health.
Funding: The study was conducted in collaboration between the Statens Serum Institut and the Danish Cancer Society, with support from the Lundbeck Foundation and the Health Foundation.
About this pregnancy and brain development research news
Author: Neuroscience News Communications
Source: Neuroscience News
Contact: Neuroscience News Communications – Neuroscience News
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Original Research: Open access.
“Maternal infections during pregnancy and offspring cognitive outcome: A nationwide full-sibling cohort study” by Anders Husby et al. PLOS Medicine
Abstract
Maternal infections during pregnancy and offspring cognitive outcome: A nationwide full-sibling cohort study
Background
Maternal infections are common during pregnancy, but it is unclear how they impact the cognitive outcome of the offspring, with many studies suggesting adverse effects.
Using long-term follow-up of a nationwide sibling cohort in Denmark with information on maternal antimicrobial prescriptions in community pharmacies and in-patient hospitalizations for infection, we aimed to estimate the effect of maternal infections during pregnancy on offspring school grades and intelligence test results in adolescence.
Methods and findings
From population-based national registries we defined a cohort of all full-siblings, born from January 1, 1996 to December 31, 2,003 in Denmark, and linked them to maternal filled prescription for antimicrobial pharmaceuticals and maternal hospitalizations for infection during pregnancy.
Standardized examination grades in language and mathematics at the final year of compulsory schooling, in addition to intelligence test scores (calculated as IQ) for a nested sub-cohort of full brothers, were used as outcomes.
Among 274,166 children in the full-sibling cohort, 80,817 (29.5%) had a mother who during her pregnancy filled a prescription for a systemic antimicrobial, while 5,628 (2.1%) had a mother who during her pregnancy was hospitalized due to an infection.
We found no consistent difference in school grades in language (z-score difference, 0.0, 95% confidence interval [CI] [−0.0,0.0]; p = 0.920) and mathematics (z-score difference, −0.0, 95% CI [−0.0,−0.0]; p = 0.042), and in IQ (IQ-difference, 0.3, 95% CI [−0.2,0.7]; p = 0.217), in children whose mother filled one antimicrobial prescription compared with children whose mother did not fill any, when taking shared family factors into account, while many associations were consistently significant when not taking shared family factors into account.
Furthermore, we found no indication of an impact of maternal in-patient hospitalizations for infections during pregnancy on school grades (z-score difference for language, −0.0, 95% CI [−0.1,0.0]; p = 0.103; z-score difference for mathematics, 0.0, 95% CI [−0.0,0.0]; p = 0.809) or IQ (IQ-difference, 0.4, 95% CI [−0.8,1.6]; p = 0.545), when also taking shared family factors into account.
Similar findings were found when considering infections in bi-weekly exposure periods during gestation. The main limitations of the study were lacking information on within hospital pharmaceutical prescriptions and the underlying pathogenic microorganisms.
Conclusions
Our study does not support major effects of common maternal infections during pregnancy on offspring cognitive outcomes, and support the safety of commonly prescribed antimicrobials during pregnancy with respect to the long-term cognitive outcomes of the offspring.