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Mother's Stress May Affect Fetus
Mental Health Problems Linked to Premature Births, Low Birth Weights
By Patricia McAdams
Health Behavior News Service
Tuesday, September 26, 2006; Page HE05
Fetuses of mothers who show high rates of depression, anxiety
and stress weigh less and are smaller than average at midterm,
according to a recent study from the University Of Miami School
Of Medicine.
Psycho biologist Miguel Diego and colleagues found that the stress
hormone cortical seems to be one potential mechanism for transmitting
a mother's stress to her unborn baby.
"Maternal distress is accompanied by biochemical changes,
such as increased cortical, that can both directly and indirectly
affect the fetus," Diego said. "Cortical can directly
cross through the placenta into the fetus, which could affect fetal
development."
The study, published in the September-October issue of Psychosomatic
Medicine, may shed light on previous findings that women with prenatal
depression, anxiety or stress are more likely to deliver premature
and low-birth-weight babies.
Cortical "can also affect the mother's vascular function,
thereby reducing blood flow to the fetus, which could affect fetal
growth by diminishing the amount of oxygen and nutrients that are
delivered," Diego said.
Ninety-eight women, between 16 and 29 weeks pregnant, took part
in the study. They were recruited from the prenatal clinic of the
University of Miami Hospital and were predominantly of lower socioeconomic
status.
The mothers completed questionnaires that measured overall levels
of distress from daily hassles, depression and anxiety. Researchers
used clinical ultrasound for fetal measurements and monitored levels
of the hormones cortical and nor epinephrine in urine samples.
After analyzing the effects of demographics, maternal distress
and hormonal levels, "prenatal cortical was the only significant
predictor of fetal weight," the researchers found.
Diego said that the mother-fetal interaction is very well protected
in most instances. It is only extreme levels of depression and
anxiety that can affect the fetus.
"One of the things this research highlights is that if you
are pregnant and under extreme amounts of stress or feeling depressed,
you should talk with your doctor about ways of treating these conditions
during pregnancy," Diego said.
Larry Gray, a pediatrician at the University of Chicago Comer
Children's Hospital, said that Diego and his colleagues are at
the frontier of trying to understand how a mother's mental health
or state of mind affects her baby. Gray was not involved with the
study.
"This association has been known clinically," Gray said, "but
this is the first study where one has looked at a mother's altered
cortical patterns before birth and how that affects the baby before
it is born."
The researchers received support from the March of Dimes, the
National Institutes of Health and the Johnson & Johnson Pediatric
Institute. Reprinted with Permission.
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