The effects of levothyroxine treatment in mothers with thyroid dysfunction on children's neurocognitive development: systematic review

Several studies have evaluated the association between maternal thyroid dysfunction during pregnancy and neurocognitive development in children. The important role of maternal thyroid hormones in all stages of the brain development in children is undeniable. Despite performed studies, there is still insufficient evidence on the beneficiary effect of the levothyroxine treatment in pregnant women with thyroid dysfunctions in terms of neurodevelopmental outcomes of children. This systematic review was performed with aim to evaluate the effects of treatment with levothyroxine in pregnant women with thyroid dysfunctions on neurocognitive development in children.

In this systematic review, databases of PubMed, Web of Science, Wiley, Google Scholar, Science Direct and Scopus were searched with appropriate keywords for the English related article from 1950 to 2019. This study used randomized clinical trials, cohort, case-control studies and case report. Among 343 related articles in initial search, 9 eligible studies were finally evaluated.

From 9 studies in this field, seven studies showed that administration of levothyroxine in mothers with thyroid dysfunctions had no significant effect on children's cognitive function or other neurodevelopment indicators; only a case report and a study on 13 samples showed that treatment improved the children neurocognetive indicators.

Treatment with levothyroxine in pregnant women with thyroid dysfunctions has no significant effect on neurodevelopment of children.