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PREGNANCY The stress would schizophrenia of the Child NOUVELOBS.COM 21.08.2008 15:04 1 comment According to one study, pregnant women subjected to a traumatic stress would be more likely to give birth to children who develop schizophrenia in adolescence. (Sipa) Pregnant women undergo a traumatic stress would be more likely to give birth to children who later develop schizophrenia. That reveals a study published Thursday, August 21 in the journal BioMed Central Psychiatry, based in London. "The type of stress in question is of the kind that we suffered during a natural disaster like an earthquake, a terrorist attack, a hurricane or a sudden bereavement," said the lead author, Dolores Malaspina . Dolores Malaspina and her colleagues examined data on 88,829 people born in Jerusalem between 1964 and 1976 and have interbred with the national registry of psychiatry Israel. 637 cases of schizophrenia were identified. A suspicion proved According to the study, children of women who were the second month of pregnancy at the height of the Arab-Israeli war in June 1967 - the "Six-Day War" - had a significantly higher rate of schizophrenia in their entry to adulthood. The authors stress that the maximum impact is in early gestation, with "a relatively narrow window of vulnerability (schizophrenia), the second month of pregnancy." The study also shows a marked difference in impact between men and women. Women in their second month of fetal life during the conflict were 4.3 times more likely to suffer from schizophrenia, while for men, this risk is much lower (1.2). Other potential influences - seasons, low birth weight, calorie intake - were rejected. "It is a striking confirmation of what we suspected for a long time," said Malaspina. One person in 200 These results confirm those of previous studies under an excess of schizophrenia in children whose mother suffered a high stress in early pregnancy. Studies, Finland and Denmark, on the loss of a husband or a relative of the 1st level of pregnant women, are most convincing, say the authors. They indeed show an excess of cases of schizophrenia in particular, when the mourning is occurring in the 1st trimester. This psychosis affects about one in 200, usually in late adolescence or early adulthood. It is marked by hallucinations, alteration of perception of reality and the relationship with others and may include delusions of persecution.