Mental Health News

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A recent study is indicating that if you were a small baby you could have a higher risk of mental health issues such as anxiety and depression.  Researchers as the University of Alberta and Colleagues in Britain studies the records of 4,600 Britons born in the year 1946 and who took part in a 40-year study.

The researchers looked at the birth weights of all these people and at whether or not the participants experienced mental health issues.  They didn’t try to look for causes of the problems, only noted the connections. 

Ian Colman, one of the researchers stated that people who only had mild to moderate symptoms of depression and anxiety tended to be smaller babies than those who were in better mental health.  He also said that this appears to be a ‘dose-response relationship’ in that the smaller you were as a baby, the more likely you are to have mood disorders. 

Researchers also noted that those who had more mental health issues throughout their lives also tended to reach developmental milestones later on, such as sitting upright and walking. 

Of course being born small doesn’t guarantee you’ll have problems.  It’s only an indicator if you were born small because of stress in the womb.  Researchers believe this is so because when a mother is very stressed blood flow to the womb is constricted and the fetus gets fewer nutrients and this can lead to lower birth weight.  Researchers also theorized that some of the stress hormones produced by the mother are being passed through the placenta to the fetus when she is stressed causing the baby to be stressed. 

Studies have also shown that a lower birth weight indicates a higher risk of diabetes and heart disease in later life.  So it’s not just mental health issues you should be concerned about.

This study shows that pregnant women should be well taken care off and care should be taken not to stress them.