To understand how premature births are influenced by stress, a team of researchers from the University of Canada conducted a study in rats that concludes that pregnancy stress passes from mothers to daughters and that in addition, it is increasing in each generation.
Maternal stress is one of the main causes of preterm birth today, so it is believed that we must take into account the experience of our mothers and grandmothers when it comes to preventing early birth.
Scientists analyzed pregnancies in four generations of rats and found that the epigenetic effects of stress inherited from ancestors could affect pregnancies for generations.
"It is shown that stress across generations becomes powerful enough to shorten the length of pregnancy in rats and induce characteristic features of human premature delivery. A surprising finding was that stress between mild and moderate during pregnancy had a compound effect across generations. Thus, the effects of stress became larger with each generation, "says lead author Gerlinde Metz.
So, avoiding stress in pregnancy will have long-term benefits in future generations. With more knowledge about these mechanisms, it may also be possible to predict and prevent premature pregnancy, as well as other diseases.
Although premature births are triggered by various factors, the stress suffered during pregnancy by our mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, etc. They could influence the risk of complications in pregnancy and childbirth.
