Stress during pregnancy hurts kids

Yet another reason to keep your pregnant partner happy…

JERUSALEM, Oct. 28 (UPI) — Stress during pregnancy results in slower development, learning and attention difficulties, anxiety and depressive symptoms, Israeli researchers said.

Marta Weinstock-Rosin of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem School of Pharmacy said that stress during a mother’s pregnancy can cause developmental and emotional problems for offspring has long been observed by behavioral and biological researchers.

However, in her experimental work with rats, Weinstock-Rosin said she was able to demonstrate the stress/developmental relationship in a conclusive, laboratory-tested manner.

In her laboratory experiments, Weinstock-Rosin found rat mothers were subjected to stressful situations — irritating sounds at alternating times — and their offspring were later shown to have impaired learning and memory abilities, less capacity to cope with adverse situations such as food deprivation and symptoms of anxiety and depressive-like behavior, as compared to those rats in control groups that were born to unstressed mothers.

All of these symptoms parallel the impairments that have been observed in children born to mothers who were stressed in pregnancy, Weinstock-Rosin said.

Under conditions of excessive stress, the large amount of the stress hormone cortisol reaching the fetal brain can cause structural and functional changes, Weinstock-Rosin said.

The findings are scheduled to be presented at an international conference in Jerusalem Wednesday and Thursday.

© 2008 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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