Psychological distress is common among pregnant women carrying fetuses with congenital heart disease (CHD) and is associated with impaired fetal brain development, new research indicates.

In a longitudinal case-control study, researchers studied 48 pregnant women carrying fetuses with CHD and 92 healthy volunteers with low-risk pregnancies.

After conducting MRI scans between 21 and 40 weeks’ gestation (74 MRIs from 48 fetuses with CHD and 149 MRIs from 92 healthy fetuses), they found that maternal stress and anxiety were associated with decreased cerebellar and hippocampal volumes in fetuses with CHD during the second half of gestation.

“Our study reports an alarmingly high prevalence of stress, anxiety and depressive symptoms in pregnant women carrying fetuses diagnosed with CHD,” said corresponding author Dr Catherine Limperopoulos, director of the Center for the Developing Brain at Children’s National Hospital, in Washington DC, US.