One consideration for thinking about the relation between stress and pregnancy is the matter of stress in pregnancy and autism. As we've emphasized elsewhere, stressing about stress is a counter-productive cycle that needs to be avoided. However, knowledge is valuable.
Expecting mothers - and their partners - should be aware of the research giving rise to widespread conclusions that pregnancy stress presents dangers to unborn children, including risks of autism. Again, though, don't stress about stress; keep the big picture in mind.
Currently the evidence comes from mice studies. Research with mice has undoubtedly offered great medical advances and provided value insights into human diseases. It does not though thereby logically follow that any finding based on mice studies can be automatically and immediately applied to humans. Whether such application is valid remains to be seen.
Another qualification to keep in mind is the always delicate issue of relevant proportionality. For instance, pumping mice full of some toxin in volumes utterly disproportionate to usual human practices surely does still provide valuable scientific insights. Not among those insights though would be any predictive value for assessing the relevance to the characteristically different human behavior.
This consideration demands reflection when we see that the researchers in the studies considered here describe the stress that they imposed on the research mice as being mild. This is not a precisely measurable term and begs all sorts of questions that require precision. Consequently, application of such findings to the human context is fraught with methodological ambiguity. The knowledge gap left wide open by this terminology must not be filled with baseless assumptions fueled by our anxieties.
With those caveats in mind, research is showing that an expectant mother's placenta can transmit biochemical effects of stress to her unborn child. An enzyme called OGT appears to be inhibited in the placenta of mice subjected to what researchers call mild stress.
The stress for the mice was created by exposure to unfamiliar noises and the scent of foxes. It's not made clear why such stress - such as being exposed to threat of a natural predator - would qualify as mild.
Still, while human applicability is complicated by this methodological wrinkle, there is value in observing that at least some level of stress among mice does correlate to significantly reduced OGT levels. These reductions triggered brain alternations for over 370 of the mice's genes.
The neurons which were altered are critically important to a number of vital brain activities in fetus development. These include regulation of energy use, protein development and nerve cell connections. This research does seem to strongly indicate that OGT helps protect development of the fetal brain.
An important difference between male and female fetuses comes into play, here. There is a naturally lower OGT level in male fetuses. Consequently, whatever the level of stress sufficient to trigger reduced OGT, the affect will be felt sooner and more drastically in the development of boys. Such conjecture would be supported by the documented fact of higher autism and schizophrenia occurrence among males.
As noted at the start, this kind of information is valuable for expecting mothers and their partners. It should though be empowering, not a source of increased stress. The basic rule remains that it is your job to take proactive measures reducing pregnancy stress. See our suggestions for solutions that work .
Expecting mothers - and their partners - should be aware of the research giving rise to widespread conclusions that pregnancy stress presents dangers to unborn children, including risks of autism. Again, though, don't stress about stress; keep the big picture in mind.
Currently the evidence comes from mice studies. Research with mice has undoubtedly offered great medical advances and provided value insights into human diseases. It does not though thereby logically follow that any finding based on mice studies can be automatically and immediately applied to humans. Whether such application is valid remains to be seen.
Another qualification to keep in mind is the always delicate issue of relevant proportionality. For instance, pumping mice full of some toxin in volumes utterly disproportionate to usual human practices surely does still provide valuable scientific insights. Not among those insights though would be any predictive value for assessing the relevance to the characteristically different human behavior.
This consideration demands reflection when we see that the researchers in the studies considered here describe the stress that they imposed on the research mice as being mild. This is not a precisely measurable term and begs all sorts of questions that require precision. Consequently, application of such findings to the human context is fraught with methodological ambiguity. The knowledge gap left wide open by this terminology must not be filled with baseless assumptions fueled by our anxieties.
With those caveats in mind, research is showing that an expectant mother's placenta can transmit biochemical effects of stress to her unborn child. An enzyme called OGT appears to be inhibited in the placenta of mice subjected to what researchers call mild stress.
The stress for the mice was created by exposure to unfamiliar noises and the scent of foxes. It's not made clear why such stress - such as being exposed to threat of a natural predator - would qualify as mild.
Still, while human applicability is complicated by this methodological wrinkle, there is value in observing that at least some level of stress among mice does correlate to significantly reduced OGT levels. These reductions triggered brain alternations for over 370 of the mice's genes.
The neurons which were altered are critically important to a number of vital brain activities in fetus development. These include regulation of energy use, protein development and nerve cell connections. This research does seem to strongly indicate that OGT helps protect development of the fetal brain.
An important difference between male and female fetuses comes into play, here. There is a naturally lower OGT level in male fetuses. Consequently, whatever the level of stress sufficient to trigger reduced OGT, the affect will be felt sooner and more drastically in the development of boys. Such conjecture would be supported by the documented fact of higher autism and schizophrenia occurrence among males.
As noted at the start, this kind of information is valuable for expecting mothers and their partners. It should though be empowering, not a source of increased stress. The basic rule remains that it is your job to take proactive measures reducing pregnancy stress. See our suggestions for solutions that work .
About the Author:
Expecting moms and their partners who want to keep up on all the relevant news need to follow the Stress and Pregnancy site. Also, for more great information about healthy life-choice, check out the info at our sister project, the Getting Rid of a Headache Without Medicine blog.
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