Effects of Maternal Stress on Infant Neurodevelopment: A Non-Systematic Review

Since stress leads to changes in the secretion of endocrine and exocrine system hormones and these hormones leave their negative effects on the health of mothers and their fetuses and babies, and on the other hand, concerning the period of pregnancy is a stressful period and this stress affects the development of the nervous system of babies, so we decided to investigate the effects of the stress of pregnant mothers on the nervous development of babies in this review study. This review study was conducted with the aim of explaining the role of stress on the development of the nervous system of infants. All review studies, clinical trials, and descriptive studies were searched to achieve the goals of this research. No time limit was applied to the studies and all published studies were evaluated in Persian and English languages. A number of articles were included in this review. The headlines of this study included stress and pregnancy, the effect of stress on pregnancy, childbirth, the effect of stress on the fetus and the baby, and the differences between male and female fetuses in being affected by maternal stress, which were fully explained. Although the basal glucocorticoid level is necessary for fertility and fetal growth and development, its increase through high activity of the HPA axis (which leads to glucocorticoid production) or drug treatments with glucocorticoids can have negative effects on fertility and have the health of the fetus and its future life.