Early life programming as a target for prevention of child and adolescent mental disorders
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Early life programming as a target for prevention of child and adolescent mental disorders Andrew James Lewis1*†, Megan Galbally2†, Tara Gannon1† and Christos Symeonides3†
Abstract This paper concerns future policy development and programs of research for the prevention of mental disorders based on research emerging from fetal and early life programming. The current review offers an overview of findings on pregnancy exposures such as maternal mental health, lifestyle factors, and potential teratogenic and neurotoxic exposures on child outcomes. Outcomes of interest are common child and adolescent mental disorders including hyperactive, behavioral and emotional disorders. This literature suggests that the preconception and perinatal periods offer important opportunities for the prevention of deleterious fetal exposures. As such, the perinatal period is a critical period where future mental health prevention efforts should be focused and prevention models developed. Interventions grounded in evidence-based recommendations for the perinatal period could take the form of public health, universal and more targeted interventions. If successful, such interventions are likely to have lifelong effects on (mental) health. Keywords: Child and adolescent mental health, Developmental origins (DOHaD), Fetal programming, Maternal mental health, Obesity, Prevention, Teterogenic exposures
Introduction In recent years, a new understanding of the relationship between the early environment and later psychiatric disorder has emerged as the new frontier of psychiatric research. Such research has been largely inspired by the developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD) model, which proposes a link between fetal development and non-communicable diseases emerging in adulthood such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes [1]. Applying the DOHaD model to research focused on the etiology of mental disorders has yielded some exciting findings. However, translation of these findings to prevent the development of mental disorders has yet to realize the full potential promised by such discoveries. Fundamental to this translational goal is the integration of prevention science, and so this paper aims to provide a review on what may be gained by linking this new understanding of early development to efforts aimed at preventing mental disorders in children and adolescents. * Correspondence: [email protected] † Equal contributors 1 School of Psychology, Faculty of Health, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
It is well established that the initial onset of high prevalence behavioral and emotional mental disorders frequently commences in childhood or adolescence. Epidemiological studies of population prevalence show rates of child and adolescent mental health disorders to be consistently between 13% and 20% [2-4]. National surveys typically assess common mental disorders in childhood and adolescence across the categories of hyperactive, emo
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