Depression treatment during pregnancy may benefit babies' brain development, randomized trial finds

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Add to Preferred Sources Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Treating depression during pregnancy influences infant brain development and early emotional function, according to new research published in Nature Communications .

In the first randomized controlled trial to demonstrate that a prenatal depression intervention can affect infant brain structure, researchers found that babies whose mothers received psychotherapy for depression during pregnancy showed differences in the development of a brain region involved in emotion and memory. Those brain differences were associated with lower negative emotionality in infancy.

The findings provide some of the strongest evidence to date that maternal mental health during pregnancy can have intergenerational effects on child development.