New research on a huge sample from Finland on some of the effects of thyroid problems in pregnancy on the child's school performance. Depending on whether the mother was hyper or hypo it can reduce their preformance, and maths is one of the areas that can be hit. Language is another.
My conclusion is that I must pay for tests for my daughter before pregnancy.
I'll shorten it right down.
Thyroid. 2015 Oct 6.
Maternal and child's thyroid function and child's intellect and scholastic performance.
Päkkilä FM1,2,3, and others.
The Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1986 included all expected births within a year (9362 women, 9479 children) from the two northernmost provinces of Finland. Maternal serum samples were obtained in early pregnancy (mean±SD 10.7+-2.8 weeks' gestation) and serum samples from their children were obtained at 16 years of age. All samples were analyzed for TSH, free T4 (fT4) and thyroid peroxidase antibodies (TPO-Abs). The children's school performance was evaluated by their main teachers at age 8 and by the adolescents themselves at age 16. Data on possible severe intellectual deficiency and mild cognitive limitation were collected from healthcare records and registries for all children. We also estimated the odds of poor school performance associated with the adolescents' own thyroid function at age 16.
RESULTS:
Girls of mothers with subclinical hypothyroidism had more self-evaluated difficulties in mathematics than girls of euthyroid mothers. Boys of hypothyroxinemic mothers repeated a school class more often than boys of euthyroid mothers. Adolescents of hyperthyroid mothers had increased odds of poor self-evaluated performance in mathematics.
Maternal thyroid dysfunction did not increase the odds of a child having severe intellectual deficiency/mild cognitive limitation.
At age 16, girls with hyperthyroidism had more difficulties in Finnish language than others. Boys with hypothyroxinemia by laboratory measurement had higher odds of having difficulties in Finnish and/or mathematics than others.
CONCLUSIONS:
Maternal thyroid dysfunction during early pregnancy is associated with poorer scholastic performance of the adolescent. Additionally, adolescents' own thyroid dysfunction was associated with difficulties in school performance.