Stress during pregnancy can cause problems in later life
New information on childhood psychological problems presented at
doctors' convention
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Stress experienced by children early in life can lead to depression, anxiety, diabetes, or high blood pressure later in life. According to a presentation at the annual national doctors' convention in Helsinki on Monday, children are more sensitive to the damage caused by stress than adults.
According to the presentation, by Linnea Karlsson of the Turku Outpatient Clinic for Youth Psychiatry, children suffer permanent damage from stress more easily than adults.
Recent studies suggest that the ability to resist stress develops already before birth. Powerful feelings of stress felt by the mother during pregnancy can make a child overly sensitive to stress. This can set the stage for stress-related problems later in life.
Sensitive children react to stress by becoming depressed, anguished, catching diseases more easily, and in many other ways.
Karlsson says that stress-related psychological disorders are affecting younger children than before.
Stress-related disorders are a problem especially for young girls, who tend to see puberty as a much more difficult period in their lives than boys do.
Girls also react to stress in ways that make the problems worse.
"Girls mull over issues endlessly, and become depressed. Boys are much more straightforward, and avoid many problems", Karlsson says.
Studies also indicate that the development of the central nervous system continues all the way to the age of 20. A central nervous system undergoing development is more susceptible to serious damage caused by stress than that of an adult.
Instability in youth is seen as a factor which triggers problems. Karlsson is critical of the Finnish school system, in which fixed class units are dispersed just when a child would need structure in his or her life.
All great losses, such as divorces, relocations, and disasters cause harmful stress for children, unless their growing environment is in order in other respects. Karlsson emphasises that a parents' divorce is not dangerous in and of itself, unless the process involves conflicts and insecurity.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 11.1.2005 - TODAY |
 Stress during pregnancy can cause problems in later life |
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