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Wednesday, 28 September 2005 12:28

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Pregnancy stress affects children

Scientists have found that mothers who are overly stressed during pregnancy can pass the stress hormone across the placenta in a way that carries long-term implications for the baby.

Bristol University researchers found anxiety in late pregnancy was linked to higher cortisol levels in children aged 10. The findings support previous studies involving animals where stress during pregnancy was found to affect the baby’s stress reponse system.

Dr Thomas O’Connor, from the University of Rochester in New York, working alongside scientists from Bristol University and Imperial College London, studied 74 10-year-old children, taking saliva samples three times a day to monitor stress hormone levels.

The children’s mothers had been questioned 10 years previously during pregnancy about the levels of stress or anxiety they experienced.

Comparing the data revealed that children with high levels of the stress hormone cortisol in their saliva tended to be born to the mothers who reported the highest levels of stress during pregnancy.

Dr O'Connor said: "These results provide the strongest evidence to date that prenatal stress is associated with longer term impact on the HPA axis in children.

"Several human studies of children and adults suggest that elevated basal levels of cortisol are associated with psychological risk...notably depression and anxiety.

"Our findings point to a possible mechanism by which prenatal stress or anxiety may predict these disturbances in early adolescence, and possibly into adulthood."

He added that further studies would be necessary to confirm the findings.

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