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:
“Back in the days when men were hunters and chestbeaters and women spent their whole lives worrying about pregnancy or dying in childbirth, they often had to be taken against their will. Men complained that women were cold, unresponsive, frigid.... They wanted their women wanton. They wanted their women wild. Now women were finally learning to be wanton and wild—and what happened? The men wilted.”
—Erica Jong (b. 1942)
“For God, nothing is impossible. And, if he wanted, in the future women would give birth from their ears.”
—François Rabelais (1494–1553)