A recent study reports the risk of developing schizophrenia is approximately 67% greater among children of women who have experienced the loss of a loved-one during their first trimester of pregnancy (but not prior to pregnancy and not after the first trimester). According to the report in the February issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, researchers studied comprehensive data from 1.38 million Danish births over a 22 year period. Nearly 22,000 of the mothers were exposed to the death of a relative, over 14,000 were exposed to a relatives’ serious illness. The children whose mothers were exposed to extreme stress such as a death or major illness of a close relative were then followed from the age of 10 until death to identify any onset of schizophrenia. Over 7,000 of the children studied went on to develop schizophrenia. The findings support the theory that severe maternal stress impacts fetal brain development profoundly inside the womb.

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