Moderate stress during pregnancy does not harm child development
From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:
Many cultures hold that stress during pregnancy affects a woman's unborn child.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the National Institute of Child Health Development (NICHD) asked 137 healthy, pregnant women with low-risk, normal pregnancies to report on their levels of anxiety and stress between the 24th and 32nd weeks of their pregnancy, as well as six weeks and two years after the birth.
Two years later, the researchers evaluated the mental and motor development of the children born to those women, as well as the toddlers' ability to control their behavior and regulate their emotions.
This remained true even after taking into account the women's stress and anxiety levels after birth, which can influence child rearing in other ways.
"While these findings may seem counterintuitive, chemicals that are produced by stress have a well-known influence on organ growth and development," said lead author Janet A. DiPietro, PhD, a developmental psychologist and professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Summarized from Child Development, Vol. 77, Issue 3, Maternal psychological distress during pregnancy in relation to child development at age two by DiPietro JA and Atella LD (Johns Hopkins School of Public Health) Novak M (National Institute of Child Health Development), Costigan KA (Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions) and Reusing SP (Johns Hopkins School of Medicine).
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