Stress in Pregnancy Linked to Changes in Infant’s Nervous System and Psychological Well Being
Link: http://neurosciencenews.com/pregnancy-stress-infant-harm-8024/
Summary: In the article "Stress in Pregnancy Linked to Changes in Infant's Nervous System and Psychological Well Being" posted by Neuroscience News explains a study that was conducted by UC San Francisco. In this study, low to middle class women who were in their second trimester were asked to name the amount of stressful life events present in their lives, such as housing problems, relationship issues, and health. The study showed that of the 67 women, the babies of the 22 women who showed the highest amount of stressful events had a high reactivity and recovered less quickly to the stressor than the 22 babies of women who showed the least amount of stressors.
This article mentions that high reactivity shows a "stronger decrease in parasympathetic nervous system activity in response to a challenge" or a stressor. This may be a link to problems with anxiety, depression, or disruptive behaviors, especially if they have a poor family or school environment. On the other hand, children who have a good family and school environment but have a high reactivity, do not have their stress response triggered as often, helping them be more sensitive to how family, relationships, and their environments benefit them, making them have better social skills.
Lastly, this article says that mothers who had high levels of stress had babies who showed 8 percent lower amounts of temperamental "surgency" than mothers who had lower levels of stress. This means that the baby did not show many signs of engagement or wanting to engage with the outside world, such as not laughing or smiling.
Reflection: This article is related to the world in many ways. One way I will explain is from what I learned in my Infant and Child Psychology class. In that class, we learned that pregnant women and their babies can be introduced to teratogens, which are any agent that can disturb and harm the developing embryo and fetus. Teratogens include alcohol, tobacco, illicit drugs, and even stress. Teratogens can harm the embryos organs and internal systems and possibly cause pre-term birth. These cause cognitive and physical developmental issues in the baby. Reading this article and knowing about the harmful effects of teratogens has showed me how important it is to take care of yourself and your body and unborn baby in not only the ways that seem obvious, such as not drinking, smoking, or doing drugs during pregnancy, but to also try to be as calm and not as stressed as possible during pregnancy.
Summary: In the article "Stress in Pregnancy Linked to Changes in Infant's Nervous System and Psychological Well Being" posted by Neuroscience News explains a study that was conducted by UC San Francisco. In this study, low to middle class women who were in their second trimester were asked to name the amount of stressful life events present in their lives, such as housing problems, relationship issues, and health. The study showed that of the 67 women, the babies of the 22 women who showed the highest amount of stressful events had a high reactivity and recovered less quickly to the stressor than the 22 babies of women who showed the least amount of stressors.
This article mentions that high reactivity shows a "stronger decrease in parasympathetic nervous system activity in response to a challenge" or a stressor. This may be a link to problems with anxiety, depression, or disruptive behaviors, especially if they have a poor family or school environment. On the other hand, children who have a good family and school environment but have a high reactivity, do not have their stress response triggered as often, helping them be more sensitive to how family, relationships, and their environments benefit them, making them have better social skills.
Lastly, this article says that mothers who had high levels of stress had babies who showed 8 percent lower amounts of temperamental "surgency" than mothers who had lower levels of stress. This means that the baby did not show many signs of engagement or wanting to engage with the outside world, such as not laughing or smiling.
Reflection: This article is related to the world in many ways. One way I will explain is from what I learned in my Infant and Child Psychology class. In that class, we learned that pregnant women and their babies can be introduced to teratogens, which are any agent that can disturb and harm the developing embryo and fetus. Teratogens include alcohol, tobacco, illicit drugs, and even stress. Teratogens can harm the embryos organs and internal systems and possibly cause pre-term birth. These cause cognitive and physical developmental issues in the baby. Reading this article and knowing about the harmful effects of teratogens has showed me how important it is to take care of yourself and your body and unborn baby in not only the ways that seem obvious, such as not drinking, smoking, or doing drugs during pregnancy, but to also try to be as calm and not as stressed as possible during pregnancy.
I am also learning about teratogens in my human development class. I found this article to be interesting, how a mothers stress can be harmful to the baby in utero. Other harmful teratogens may include viruses, chemicals and even pollution. Teratogens can lead to physical and mental abnormalities, some of these may not be evident at birth and show up later in the child's life. Timing and dosage also play a big factor on how it can influence prenatal development. The earlier the teratogen is exposed to the fetus the more harmful it will be in the development of the baby because the first trimester is crucial for the development. By the end of week eight all bodily structures are in place like the central nervous system, arms/legs, hands/ feet, heart and face.
ReplyDeleteMy previous major was Occupational Therapy, and my current major is Psychology so I have taken extensive courses not only in human development but also in biology so the topic of pregnancy has always been an issue that extensive time was dedicated to. We are always told that during pregnancy it is important to stay away from drugs, alcohol, cat litter, and other harmful chemicals because these will not only affect the mother but the child as well. However, I do not think that enough time is spent on talking about how stress can negatively affect the growing fetus. I really like that you chose this article because it shows the affects of stress on the fetus. I read an article that even though there are no neural connections between the fetus and mother, the stress causes massive hormonal changes in the mother which the child will experience. Stress is also dangerous during pregnancy because it can cause a spike in blood pressure which is not good for either hte mother or the fetus.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading this post, I could remember brief memories from taking Human Development last year and learning about the fundamental importance of a stable, stress-free environment for a developing child, both before and after birth. I have also learned in an education course this current semester about the detrimental effects of stress on children academically and socially. Stress is incredibly destructive to human body and its development upon exposure to large amounts. Reducing the amount of stress before birth is crucial for a pregnant woman, as demonstrated by the findings in this research, since the effects do not only impact the woman's quality of life, but also the unborn child's development. What was even more worrisome to learn was the surgency factor -- perhaps diagnoses for developmental disorders and learning disabilities could be better explained by the potential effect of stress on a child's mother during gestation.
ReplyDeleteThis post reminds me of learning about different causes of schizophrenia in my abnormal psychology class. Similarly, disturbances during the 2nd trimester have major effects on the child. In the case of schizophrenia specifically, women who had viral/flu infections as well as birth complications during this time were shown to have a strong relationship to the child developing schizophrenia later on. I believe that this shows how much a child’s prenatal experience will relate to their lives growing up and predispose them to certain disorders or in this article’s case, cognition. Furthermore, it demonstrates the major effects of stress and how it is detrimental to our health, which was also discussed in the “Brain Rules” book as an important principle to brain function.
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