Mothers DO Pass on Pregnancy Stress to Newborns

By admin August 7, 2014 09:10

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Flickr Photo by sanjana singh

Canadian researches have recently found that stress can alter genes, meaning that mothers-to-be can pass that stress on to their babies — affecting pregnancies for generations to come.

According to the Daily Mail, girls born to stressed mothers are more likely to give birth prematurely.

The study was done in the University of Lethbridge subjecting rats to stress late in pregnancy and observing their offspring.

The results found that the daughters of stressed rats had shorter pregnancies that the daughters of those who had not been. And remarkably, the grand-daughters of stressed rats had shorter pregnancies, even if their mothers had not been stressed.

A surprising finding was that mild to moderate stress during pregnancy had a compounding effect across generations.She added these changes are due to microRNA (miRNA) – non-coding RNA molecules that play a role in regulating gene expression.

With more knowledge of these mechanisms it may be possible to predict and prevent preterm pregnancy but also other diseases.