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Stress before birth affects the psyche of the child
If an expectant mother has a lot of stress during pregnancy, this could increase the risk of psychiatric illness in the child. This is suggested by a new study by an international team of researchers.
Various scientific studies have shown that stress during pregnancy can have negative consequences for the baby. This increases the risk for the unborn child of later developing certain physical diseases such as asthma. A new study by an international team of researchers led by the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry and Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, now suggests that pregnancy stress also leads to a change in the way genes in nerve cells respond to stress in later life can.
Stress increases the risk of a number of health problems
As the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry writes in a communication, studies in animals and humans have so far shown that stress, such as depression, malnutrition or hormone administration for lung maturation of the child during pregnancy, increases the risk of the unborn child to suffer from various health problems later in life.
Increased stress during this critical stage of development is said to be associated with a number of health problems later in the child's life, such as increased sensitivity to stress, cognitive deficits, and increased susceptibility to psychiatric disorders and behavioral problems. These could be mediated by a changed brain function.
A possible molecular mechanism responsible for this has now been identified. Stress hormones trigger a change in an important epigenetic process, DNA methylation, and thus cause genes to be read differently over a longer period of time. Because although stress hormones are necessary for the brain development of the fetus, too much of it has proven to be harmful.
Findings could help in the development of preventive measures
The researchers used human brain cells to observe the effects of stress hormones during fetal development. They found that chronic stress during the early regeneration of nerve cells, known as neurogenesis, leads to a long-term change in genes through epigenetic mechanisms.
In addition, the scientists were able to show that, when stress occurs again, these epigenetic changes lead to increased sensitivity to subsequent stress.
In order to be able to transfer these findings from the laboratory to humans, umbilical cord blood cells from newborns who were exposed to high stress, such as depression and anxiety disorders of the mother or stress hormone administration, were also examined.
As a result, it was observed that the epigenetic changes in the neurons and those found in the genes of the stressed newborns matched. These epigenetic markings can be seen as "memories of the cell" of past stress, which could affect the individual's sensitivity to future stress.
Stress before the birth of a baby seems to change not only the development of nerve cells, but also the reaction to stress later in life. This knowledge not only provides information about the possible long-term effects of early environmental wine flows, but could also help to develop strategies for preventive measures. The study results were published in the journal "PNAS". (ad)
Author and source information
This text corresponds to the specifications of the medical literature, medical guidelines and current studies and has been checked by medical doctors.
Swell:
- Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry: Stress before birth increases the risk of psychiatric illnesses, (accessed: August 19, 2019), Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry
- PNAS: Glucocorticoid exposure during hippocampal neurogenesis primes future stress response by inducing changes in DNA methylation, (accessed: August 19, 2019), PNAS
