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December 4, 2007Smaller Babies More Prone to Depression, Anxiety Later On |
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From EurekAlert! - Breaking News: Turns out there might be some truth to the popular wisdom that plump babies are happy babies. A landmark public health study has found that people who had a low birth weight are more likely to experience depression and anxiety later in life. "We found that even people who had just mild or moderate symptoms of depression or anxiety over their life course were smaller babies than those who had better mental health," said lead author Ian Colman of the University of Alberta's School of Public Health. The results represent an important chapter in the "nature versus nurture" debate, supporting the theory that conditions in the womb do indeed have an effect on our future development. The connection between birth weight and mental health isn't the only fascinating find made by Colman and colleagues at the University of Cambridge and University College London in England. The researchers emphasize they are not saying all small babies will experience poor mental health in the future. They also say this study is not about babies born full-term versus babies born premature, since the data collected back in 1946 made no mention of gestational age at birth. It is a problem if you were born small because of adverse conditions in the womb---and low birth weight is what we looked at in this study because it is considered a marker of stress in the womb. When a mother is really stressed, blood flow to the uterus is restricted and the fetus gets fewer nutrients, which tends to lead to lower birth weight," explained Colman.
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