www.stuff.co.nz -
PREGNANT AND stressed to the max? You could be creating a child who's timid, anxious and temperamental.
Visiting Canadian academic Professor Michael Meaney, a researcher into the effects of maternal stress on children's behaviour, says a woman's mental health can be just as important as her physical health in determining how her baby fares.
"For children in general, the level of anxiety of the mother is a very good predictor of the level of timidity and anxiety in the offspring."
Meaney is directing a major study at Montreal's McGill University that follows groups of depressed women through pregnancy and monitors them and their children over the following years.
He says research has shown the repeated or long-term release of stress hormones during pregnancy has been linked to heart disease, diabetes, immune problems and mental illness in offspring.
And it means that babies being born with such problems are often the offspring of parents who are most ill-equipped to cope.
The hormones affect the development of areas of the brain, inhibit growth of the baby and disrupt the blood flow through the placenta.
So how much stress is too much?.....
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sundaystartimes/4650099a6442.html
