I will never forgot the moment that a doctor told me that I was crazy to think that the stress I encountered during my pregnancy bared any weight on my child’s anxiety. She was a pediatric developmental pediatrician. Her words were, “Mothers go through war and far worse things than you have and their children turn out fine so I’m talking real stress.” So in the last 5 years things have changed some what. Articles are coming out an announcing that stress that mother’s incur during pregnancy can in fact impact on the fetus. Really? I never knew. Well, here is an article that address that topic exactly.
Stress in pregnancy hit offspring’s emotional brain.
Stress experienced by a pregnant female can alter the structure of her offspring’s brain, particularly regions vital for emotional development, scientists have discovered.
Boys are more likely to develop attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) than girls – a disorder that seems to be related to the brain’s prefrontal attention systems, while women are more likely to develop depression, which is known to be related to shrinkage in the hippocampus.
“Early experiences, especially emotional experiences, shape brain circuits for later life,” says Braun. The susceptibility to stress continues after birth, with different types of stress and trauma leading to different brain effects, she adds.
Read the full article
- Talk It, Breathe It, Live It, Share It
- Share
WOW! Very interesting article. I experienced tremendous anxiety during all four of my pregnancies and now have one child with SPD and a son on the Spectrum. All four of our children have anxiety issues (my oldest and my son being the most severely affected) and I wondered if my own anxieties had an impact on their issues.
Of course, we never know for sure but it’s interesting to see they are researching it.
Thanks so much for this info!
Chynna
http://www.lilywolfwords.ca
http://www.lilywolfwords.blogspot.com
[...] we just grin and bare it right? Well, for you long time blog readers you may remember my post about pregnancy stress. It discusses the affects that stress has on our bodies and what it does to our children. Imagine [...]