Pregnancy and Birth
Environmental events surrounding pregnancy and birth have been linked to an increased development of mental illness in the offspring. This includes maternal exposure to serious psychological stress or trauma, conditions of famine, obstetric birth complications, infections, and gestational exposure to alcohol or cocaine. Such factors have been hypothesized to affect specific areas of neurodevelopment within the general developmental context and to restrict neuroplasticity.
People with developmental disabilities, such as mental retardation, are more likely to experience mental illness than those in the general community.
Read more about this topic: Causes Of Mental Disorders
Famous quotes containing the words pregnancy and/or birth:
“There are highly gifted spirits who are always infertile simply because, owing to a weakness in temperament, they are too impatient to wait out their pregnancy to term.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“It suggested, too, that the same experience always gives birth to the same sort of belief or religion.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)