Thursday, May 29, 2008

Mom’s Stress During Pregnancy Increases Allergy, Asthma Risk


New York (ChattahBox) - A new study has shown that pregnant mothers who are exposed to high levels of stress put their babies at an increased risk of developing asthma, and allergies.
Researchers from the Harvard Medical studies women who went through high levels of stress during pregnancy. They looked at a total of nearly 350 infants.

What they found was that the mothers who had experienced the greatest level of stress had more of the chemical known as lgE in their umbilical blood when they gave birth compared to women who did not go through as much stress.

lgE is linked directly to the risk of asthma and various types of allergies The increased risk was seen regardless of the exposure to various levels of dust mites, which also trigger allergies.

Things such as race, medical history, etc. also were found to have no effect on the overall risk.
Stress was found to make women more at risk of allergies due to their immune system weakening. This stress, according to the study, can be passed to the infant.

The findings were presented at the American Thoracic Society’s 2008 International Conference in Toronto.