Maternal Infection during Pregnancy and Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Children: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: we aimed to determine the association between maternal infections during pregnancy with risk of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (adhd) in children.methods: a systematic literature search was performed utilizing the online databases pubmed, scopus, and web of sciences up to july 2020. random-effects meta-analyses were applied to estimate pooled relative risk (rr). heterogeneity, study quality and publication bias were assessed through i2 value, newcastle–ottawa scale (nos) and egger's test, respectively.results: thirteen articles involving 1401904 mother-child pairs were included. the result of meta-analysis showed that the risk of adhd increased by 30% among children whose mothers took any infections during pregnancy (pooled rr=1.30, 95% ci: 1.14-1.49; i2=85.5, p<0.001). overall, the included studies were good in quality and no publication bias was found (p=0.23, egger’s test).conclusion: maternal infections during pregnancy might be associated with an increased risk of adhd in chil-dren.