Higher Risk of Offspring Schizophrenia Following Antenatal Maternal Exposure to Severe Adverse Life Events

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Abstract
The common conception that a mother's psychological state can influence her unborn baby is to some extent substantiated by the literature.1 Severe life events during pregnancy are consistently associated with an elevated risk of low birth weight2 and prematurity.3 Recently, Hansen et al4 reported specific effects of severe life events on neurodevelopment in exposed offspring. They found an increased risk of cranial neural crest malformations in offspring of mothers exposed to death of an older child during the first trimester. Other studies have also attempted to find evidence of a positive association between antenatal maternal stress and an increased risk of adult schizophrenia in exposed offspring.5,6