Stress During Pregnancy Affects Fetal Development
For pregnant women, continuous anxiety and mental strain could cause babies to be underweight and nutrition-deprived at birth, according to a recent study. So, it's important not to stress about your stress levels.
Stress during pregnancy is understandable. There are preparations to make before the baby arrives and the everyday worry of carrying around another person in your womb. But there's a difference between the everyday strain of pregnancy and chronic, unyielding stress. For pregnant women, continuous anxiety and mental strain could cause developmental risks to the fetus.
In a press release, lead author of the study, Owen Vaughan, talked about the study, which was published in The Journal of Physiology. Vaughan and his team of researchers used pregnant mice in order to conduct their research, injecting them with a natural glucocorticoid corticosterone to cause stress at different times of fetal development. Researchers injected 20 females from day 11 to 16 and 31 females from day 14 to19, and used 74 females as a control group (they received no injections).
The mice who received injections tended to eat more, however, the researchers noted that the glucocorticoid stress hormones caused a decrease in transition of nutrients through the placenta. Particularly, in the transportation of glucose to the fetus. This resulted in the fetuses weight less than the control-group of mice.
Vaughan explained the long-term effects these stress hormones could have on human offspring:
"Glucocorticoid levels in pregnant women may determine the specific combination of nutrients received by the foetus and influence the long-term metabolic health of their children as a result. This could have implications for women stressed during pregnancy or treated clinically with glucocorticoids, if the mechanisms are similar in humans.”
Read more at EurekAlert!
Photo Credit: futurestreet/Flickr
LinkedIn meets Tinder in this mindful networking app
Swipe right to make the connections that could change your career.
Swipe right. Match. Meet over coffee or set up a call.
No, we aren't talking about Tinder. Introducing Shapr, a free app that helps people with synergistic professional goals and skill sets easily meet and collaborate.
4 reasons Martin Luther King, Jr. fought for universal basic income
In his final years, Martin Luther King, Jr. become increasingly focused on the problem of poverty in America.
- Despite being widely known for his leadership role in the American civil rights movement, Martin Luther King, Jr. also played a central role in organizing the Poor People's Campaign of 1968.
- The campaign was one of the first to demand a guaranteed income for all poor families in America.
- Today, the idea of a universal basic income is increasingly popular, and King's arguments in support of the policy still make a good case some 50 years later.
A world map of Virgin Mary apparitions
She met mere mortals with and without the Vatican's approval.
- For centuries, the Virgin Mary has appeared to the faithful, requesting devotion and promising comfort.
- These maps show the geography of Marian apparitions – the handful approved by the Vatican, and many others.
- Historically, Europe is where most apparitions have been reported, but the U.S. is pretty fertile ground too.
Why I wear my life on my skin
For Damien Echols, tattoos are part of his existential armor.
- In prison Damien Echols was known by his number SK931, not his name, and had his hair sheared off. Stripped of his identity, the only thing he had left was his skin.
- This is why he began tattooing things that are meaningful to him — to carry a "suit of armor" made up the images of the people and objects that have significance to him, from his friends to talismans.
- Echols believes that all places are imbued with divinity: "If you interact with New York City as if there's an intelligence behind... then it will behave towards you the same way."
SMARTER FASTER trademarks owned by The Big Think, Inc. All rights reserved.