The impact of maternal health on child's health outcomes during the first five years of child's life in countries with health systems similar to Australia: A systematic review

Abstract

Introduction: The first five years of life is an important developmental period that establishes the foundation for future health and well-being. Mothers play a primary role in providing emotional and physical nourishment during early childhood. This systematic review aims to explore the association between maternal health and child health in the first five years of the child's life.

Materials and methods: As primary aims, we systematically synthesised published evidence relating to the first five years of life for associations between maternal health exposures (mental, physical and Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) and child health outcomes (physical health, mental health, HRQoL and Health Service Use (HSU) /cost). As a secondary aim, we explored how the above associations vary between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged populations. The search was limited to studies that published and collected data from 2010 to 2022. The systematic review was specific to countries with similar health systems to Australia. The search was conducted in MEDLINE, CINAHL, APA PsycINFO, GLOBAL HEALTH, and EMBASE databases. The quality of the included studies was assessed by The Effective Public Health Practice Project (EPHPP) tool.

Results: Thirteen articles were included in the final synthesis from the identified 9439 articles in the primary search. Six (46%) explored the association between maternal mental health and child's physical health, two (15%) explored maternal and child's physical health, one (8%) explored maternal and child's mental health, one (8%) explored maternal physical health and child's HRQoL, and three (23%) explored maternal mental health and child's HSU. We found an association between maternal health and child health (physical and mental) and HSU outcomes but no association between maternal health and child's overall HRQoL. The results for disadvantaged communities did not show any difference from the general population.

Discussion and conclusion: Our review findings show that maternal health influences the child's health in the first five years. However, the current evidence is limited, and the findings were primarily related to a specific maternal or child's health condition. There was no evidence of associations of child health outcomes in healthy mothers. There is an extensive research gap investigating maternal health exposures and child outcomes in quality of life and overall health.