Severe Stress In Pregnancy Linked To Schizophrenia

A new study has revealed that if pregnant women endure severe psychological stress, like living in a war zone, during their early months of pregnancy, their child is more likely to develop schizophrenia. The lead author of the study, Dolores Malaspina M.D said, "The stresses in question are those that would be experienced in a natural disaster such as an earthquake or hurricane, a terrorist attack, or a sudden bereavement." The study examined 88,829 children who were born in Jerusalem between the years 1964-1976. Babies born to mothers who were in the early stages of pregnancy during the 1967 War had much higher incidences of schizophrenia when compared with the rest of the population. "A developing foetus requires some exposure to maternal stress hormones as it normalizes their stress functioning. But women experiencing anxiety or excessive stress would do well to address it before a planned pregnancy and to have good social support systems," Malaspina concluded from the study.
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