Can Pregnancy Inflammation Influence ADHD in Children? (New Study Breakdown)

Understanding why ADHD happens can feel like chasing a moving target. This study adds a biological angle most people haven't considered.

We discuss a prospective study examining whether maternal inflammation during the second trimester is associated with ADHD symptoms in children later in life. Researchers measured cytokine levels in 62 pregnant women and followed up on ADHD symptoms in 68 children using teacher and parent reports.

The study suggests there is an association between those inflammation markers and later ADHD symptoms. It does not establish cause. The sample was small, blood draws were not standardized by time of day, and the researchers framed this explicitly as preliminary work to identify what warrants deeper investigation.

What We Cover

• What cytokine levels are and why researchers used them to measure maternal inflammation
• Where the methodology falls short and why the researchers themselves framed this as preliminary
• Why future research in this area needs a systems-based approach rather than adding more pressure to mothers

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

They wanted to understand if the biomarkers for inflammation in the second trimester were connected to symptoms of ADHD later in life.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

In this episode, we're going to be discussing a paper called Evaluation of Maternal Inflammation as a marker of future offspring ADHD symptoms, a prospective investigation. And so this is a study that is investigating like these biological origins of ADHD and, you know, more specifically, whether a mother's immune system during pregnancy might be able to predict ADHD symptoms in those children once they're born.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

Yeah, and I will say this is why I love doing this will, because I so much appreciate that you are willing to go into this dense paper with me. And I want to say up front, when we're going through this paper, we are not experts in the medical field. And this particular paper is also very preliminary. So at the end, it specifically references that the purpose of this paper is to decide what needs to be studied more in depth. They looked at 68 children from 62 women who were pregnant in an outpatient clinic, and basically they wanted to understand if the biomarkers for inflammation in the second trimester were connected to symptoms of ADHD, not ADHD diagnosis, in later in life. And they were to looking at that from teachers and also from the parents themselves. So there was a it took quite a long time, this paper. It was it was more of a longitudinal study.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Yeah, absolutely. And I was really impressed with like, yeah, they're like looking at stuff with mother during pregnancy and then following up with those children who are born and like looking at those symptoms and being like, yeah, what are we seeing here? What because yeah, you have to look at both that before and after effects and seeing what does. And that is that's a long-term study.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

100%. And what they were doing when they were doing those initial measures is they were measuring things like maternal distress, other things like this, which can affect inflammation, and they did try and control for some of those. And then they were also looking at the you know blood samples, and they were testing them to understand what the inflammation looked like. They said they couldn't draw the blood samples at the same time of the day for all participants, and we do know that inflammation can change due to so many factors, including time of day. So I wanted to zoom out here a little bit, Will, and actually just say those people who are listening and they're like, okay, cool, I've heard of inflammation, but what is it? What are we actually looking for?

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Yeah, so I mean, yeah, because as a pop culture reference, you know, there's all sorts of things about inflammation that are less than scientifically accurate. And so, I guess, like specifically for this study, they were doing like these blood sample collections and you know, looking at the cytokine levels and being like, hey, like what what are those levels? But I guess your question was what is inflammation? And that is a hard, straight-up definition without when you don't go into like, oh, this these levels, but it is the your basically like your immune system being reactive to what's going on.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. And they did measure what they called cytokinine levels. They had different ways of thinking about this, and this was essentially looking at the small proteins. Sorry, I'm gonna read this because I did read I did my own search into it. The small proteins used by systems to communicate, essentially. Those are the cytokinin levels, and that is what they were they were trying to measure as part of predicting both whether they had inflammation and also whether that inflammation was related to later ADHD symptoms. And yeah, like I said, there wasn't a diagnosis. So they did find a relationship, which was interesting because it was it does indicate that there is potentially an association. And I will say, for me, this is one of the first times because when you said we should research this, I was interested in this because I've heard about the fact that there could be a relationship that isn't genetic. But I have to say I have been a little bit biased against this idea that there is something you know that can be a part associated with ADHD that isn't genetic because it feels like that's always used in a like a not good faith way.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Yeah, often it's blaming the parents for how a kid turned out. It's like, oh yeah, you didn't feed them enough broccoli and now they have ADHD. Yeah. And it's just like this is yeah, not it's just bad faith. It's these things where they're just trying to sell you a supplement or something to cure your ADHD often.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

Exactly. And, you know, as I was saying to Will, like I just recently had my third baby, and I, you know, the conversation about being calm, being healthy, like that's always a part of the conversation of uh, you know, giving birth and trying to, you know, remember that. But it's n it's nine months. Like the chances that I'm gonna be relaxed and not inflamed for a whole nine months is that's a that's a big ask.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Yeah. And I I mean I think that's an important thing to also consider when we're looking at this study, because they didn't have like a lot of tests during the pregnancy. It was, you know, like one test during the third trimester. So while that might be able to like be great with like looking at chronic inflammation, if you also are just having a very stressful day getting to the hospital, you might be having that in response too.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Yeah, exactly. I mean, like for us, you know, there's you're doing a whole bunch of tests, there's a whole bunch of things going on. You have toddlers, like at this point, I have two other little kids that are that are creating, you know, a little bit of a stress compared to having my first baby. So yeah, there's all of these different pieces that could affect it. And and I will say, to their credit, they did recognize that. And so for them, this was um, if we jump back to you know what they were really looking for and why, they said that this is important because ADHD, in their words, was so costly and difficult to alter. So being able to evaluate the merits of whether it would make sense to do deeper research that requires more testing over time, which is obviously very, you know, a lot of work for for mums, could be necessary. So I'm I'm really curious about this, what this would mean. I mean, they've done the study, they've found that there's an association. Somebody, somebody then goes ahead and does a deeper study into this. What would it change if they did find that there was some serious connection between inflammation and ADHD?

SPEAKER_00 6:59

I mean, it would change some of the recommendations on what we're asking mothers to do to reduce that beforehand. Like we, you know, there's like already recommendations for things like folate and all these other uh like free natal vitamins and stuff. And, you know, maybe adding stuff that can help with uh anti-inflammation could be something that they're like, hey, yeah, this will also help. Because it's also again, these are we're not looking at an ADHD diagnosis here, we're looking at these symptoms, and so it's being like, Oh, yeah, we're just looking to reduce the chance that they're having these symptoms of being part of you know their growing up because we all know ADHD is hard.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

Yeah, and you do get a lot more criticism, and you know, it can be difficult to be in a classroom if you struggle with ADHD symptoms. I mean, we could talk about whether this means you should change the classroom or whatever, but you know, besides the point of this conversation.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Yeah, and one of the uh interesting pieces that I was thinking about while reading this too, and based on what you were saying earlier, with like, you know, like seeing this as a non-genetic thing, but it could still be in this idea of epigenetics where you have like the gene expression and certain environmental factors making it so that these genes are turned on, quote unquote. And so it's being like, oh yeah, maybe we can just if we see this inflammation connection, maybe there are other further lines of things too that we can also change how these genes are expressed when you're an adult.

SPEAKER_02 8:21

Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, you know, they they said maternal inflammation predicted teacher report of child ADHD symptoms at a significant level, which is kind of you know, it feels crazy because it's the two things are so far apart. The the study was so like it had so many holes in it in terms of, you know, the number of people and all of those things, they could easily have found a non-significant result. But yeah, I hope that if they do more of this research and they find this is important and this does affect epigenetic switches, that they don't just make this another thing that moms have to deal with. Because as somebody who had a baby last year, that would not be viable or helpful in any way.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

Yeah, because often it's times it's just like, yeah, moms need to do all these things plus all these other things, and if you're not, you're just being a bad mom. And it's like, you know, that's telling moms that it's very stressful and probably not helping.

SPEAKER_02 9:19

Yeah, you probably increased information just by having that conversation. So yeah. Definitely hoping that if they do find this, it comes with a little bit more of a systems-based solution. Regardless of, you know, if you're struggling with ADHD, keep it in mind, but don't hold it too tightly because it's still a really emerging space.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the ADHD Skills Lab. If you liked it, leave us a five star review. It helps other people learn more about us. And thank you so much to our wonderful team for making us sound good, look good. Couldn't do it without you.