Longer gestational age affects brain development

Principal researcher and brain scientist Dr Hanan El Marroun: “The research shows that a lot is still happening in the brain development of the child until the last days of pregnancy. Every week counts. Obviously, induction and caesarean sections are good and important when there are medical complications, but we hope that if this is not absolutely necessary, doctors and hospitals will take this new knowledge into account when making medical decisions. Now the focus is mainly on the moment itself, but what it can mean in the long term is just as important.

Increase in planned boulder cuts

Professor Henning Tiemeier is one of the researchers and affiliated with the Harvard School of Public Health: “Worldwide there is an increase in the number of planned caesarean sections. The choice for a caesarean section is not always made solely on the basis of medical criteria and sometimes a caesarean section is therefore not necessarily necessary. In the Netherlands this development is much less serious, but in South American countries the percentages are much higher. The discussion has been going on for a while, but this is the best evidence yet: a longer gestational age affects the brain volume of the child. ”

Generation R Studie

The research was carried out in a large-scale population study in Rotterdam, the ‘Generation R Study’. It follows the brain development of more than 3,000 children from early pregnancy to teenage years. A term ultrasound at the beginning of the pregnancy determined how long mothers were pregnant and the total gestational age was calculated at birth. Ten years later, the children underwent a brain scan, in which the brain was mapped.

Larger brain volumes with longer gestational age

The study shows that pregnancy length is directly proportional (or linear) to brain volume. That is to say, each week that the child spent longer in the womb resulted in larger brain volumes measured at the age of 10 years. The study also shows that longer gestational age was related to an increase in cerebral cortex area and cranial fold, but not to cerebral cortex thickness. This is probably because the thickness of the cerebral cortex is determined early in pregnancy.

In summary, a longer gestational age, between 37 and 42 weeks, is related to larger brain volumes, a larger surface area and more crimping of the cerebral cortex at the age of 10 years of the child. From these results it can be concluded that gestational age, even in the last weeks of pregnancy, can be important for long-term brain development.

Follow-up study

The long-term consequences of a slightly earlier birth for brain function was not included in this study and has yet to be investigated. It must also be investigated whether the relationship between gestational age and brain development is causal. In addition, it is important to investigate in a follow-up study whether later scheduled caesarean sections (closer to the due date) versus normally planned caesarean sections lead to more favorable brain development, so that hospital policy can be adjusted in the long term.

By: Nationale Zorggids

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