FRIDAY, Oct. 9, 2026 (HealthDay News) -- Low levels of placental growth factor (PlGF) during the third trimester are associated with a higher risk for a later attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnosis in children, according to a research letter published online Sept. 23 in JAMA Psychiatry.
Serena B. Gumusoglu, Ph.D., from University of Iowa Health Care in Iowa City, and colleagues examined whether maternal PlGF trajectories during pregnancy differ across trimesters in women whose children later received an ADHD diagnosis. The analysis included maternal plasma samples from the University of Iowa Perinatal Family Tissue Bank (54 pregnancies linked to ADHD and 122 controls).
The researchers found a significant ADHD-by-third trimester (T3) interaction for PlGF (β = −1.26 standard deviation [SD]), which persisted when adjusting for offspring sex, preeclampsia, and fetal growth restriction/small for gestational age (FGR/SGA). For the second trimester, there was no significant interaction. In adjusted T3-stratified analyses, PlGF was significantly lower in ADHD cases (β = −0.56). For each one standard deviation decrease in T3 PlGF, there were significantly higher odds of offspring ADHD, even when adjusting for offspring sex, preeclampsia, and FGR/SGA (odds ratio, 0.38). When excluding pregnancies complicated by preeclampsia, FGR/SGA, or preterm birth before 34 weeks (142 remaining pregnancies), the ADHD-by-T3 interaction remained (β = −0.96 SD).
"This is important because it indicates that we aren't just flagging 'sick' pregnancies," Gumusoglu said in a statement. "Our results point to subtle placental changes in pregnancies that did not have a clinical diagnosis yet still resulted in neurodevelopmental differences in children."
