Background: There are evidences that maternal anxiety and depression during pregnancy affects child outcomes. However, there is lack of studies that have evaluated the effects of maternal psychosocial factors during pregnancy on child neurocognitive outcomes. The goal of this research was to evaluate the effect of the maternal mindfulness training during pregnancy on neurocognitive development in children.

Participants and Methods: In the current study we included 16 women who participated in six-week maternal mindfulness training during pregnancy. Women were between 14 and 20 weeks gestation. Participants were trained in the practice of mindfulness meditation and its applications to daily life through participation in instructor-led group meditations. The control group included 16 women. When the offspring of the target pregnancies were between 6 to 7 years of age, their neurocognitive development was assessed by Lurias's child neuropsychological assessment battery that is designed to assess five functional domains (executive abilities, language, memory, sensorimotor and visuospatial abilities). Children from experimental group consisted of 16 children at 6-7 years of age (M = 6.45 years, SD = 0.79, 11 boys and 5 girls). Children from control group included 16 children (M = 6.49 years, SD = 0.84, 11 boys and 5 girls).

Results: One-way ANOVA has revealed the significant differences (p≤0,05) between groups in executive functional domain. Children from the experimental group performed better on subtests from this domain.

Conclusion: Maternal mindfulness training during pregnancy may have positive effect on executive abilities in children. However, we need to do further research for revealing this positive effect.