Prenatal
and perinatal risk factors for anxiety disorders have rarely been
studied, even though they are highly prevalent in children and
adolescents. It is important to identify the common risk factors, so
that targeted preventive care and early interventions can be provided.

A
systematic review of the PubMed and PsycInfo databases was conducted to
25 October 2019, according to the Preferred Reporting Items of
Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses guidelines. The protocol was
registered on the Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews and the
quality assessment was carried out using the Joanna Briggs tools.

The
review identified 31 studies from eight countries, including three
register studies. Cohort sizes ranged from 69 to 89,404 and diagnoses
cases ranged from 4 to 7867. Although various risk factors had been
researched, only few of them had been repeatedly studied and the
findings were highly inconsistent. The associations between the
different risk factors and anxiety disorders seemed weak compared to
many other psychiatric disorders, but preterm birth and maternal somatic
illnesses may increase the risk for anxiety disorders in offspring.