Work

Associations Between Teenage Motherhood, Perinatal Cortical Maturation, and Risk of Psychopathology in Children: The Mediating Role of Pregnancy Complications

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Background Children born to teenage mothers (<20 years) are at increased risk of psychopathology, partly due atypical brain development. We explored whether this risk is mediated by perinatal complications more frequent in teenage pregnancies and by their impact on perinatal brain maturation indexed by sulcal morphometry. Method Using data from the ABCD study (N=5291 singletons, 9–11 years old), we investigated the associations between maternal age, child psychopathology risks (CBCL), sulcal morphometry (sulcal surface, width, length and mean depth) and perinatal complications through mixed modeling, mediation analysis and structural equation modeling. Results Maternal age was negatively associated with CBCL scores, indicating higher risks of psychopathology in children born to teenage mothers. Severe anemia, nausea, unplanned pregnancy, tobacco/marijuana use, and urinary tract infection partially mediate this association. Consistently, SEM showed that maternal age’s association with offspring psychopathology risk was mediated by perinatal adversities that were more prevalent in teenage pregnancies. Maternal age was associated with sulcal morphometry, consistent with variations in perinatal brain maturation. In boys, perinatal adversity linked to teenage pregnancies was associated with wider frontal and sub-parietal sulci, which mediated higher CBCL scores in boys born to teenage mother. In girls, maternal age was positively associated with occipito-temporal sulcus length; however, sulcal morphometry was not associated with perinatal adversity in teenage pregnancies and did not mediate psychopathology risks. Conclusion Overall, this study suggests that teenage motherhood is linked to early brain development and psychopathology risks in offspring partly through the perinatal adversities that are more commonly associated with it. Plain Language Summary Children born to teenage mothers face increased psychopathology risk during childhood. This association was partly explained by pregnancy-related adversities more common in teenage pregnancies, such as unplanned pregnancy, urinary tract infections, and substance use. These perinatal adversities were associated with markers of perinatal brain maturation, partly accounting for later mental health risks. This increased risk was not reducible to socioeconomic disadvantage, environmental hardship, or familial context, suggesting that perinatal complications associated with teenage pregnancy may contribute to child vulnerability through a distinct developmental pathway. These findings underline the importance of targeted prenatal monitoring for teenage mothers.

Source: Biological Psychiatry Global Open Science

DOI: 10.1016/j.bpsgos.2026.100789