Studies related to natural disasters such as famines, earthquakes and pandemics have coincided in highlighting that the stress to which pregnant women are exposed causes short and long-term consequences on their health and that of their babies.
This is pointed out by researchers from the University of Granada who have decided to go one step further and warn of the need for a psychological evaluation of future mothers during the Covid-19 crisis , to avoid damage to babies, such as those that have been observed in other pandemics.
Direct and indirect consequences of the coronavirus
Rafael Caparrós, head of the project ‘Psychological and Social Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Pregnancy, Vertical Transmission of SARS-CoV-2, Fetal Development and Child Health: GESTACOVID’, points out that it is important to clarify that, on the one hand, there are the direct health effects that could be caused by contagion with the SARS-CoV-2 virus (responsible for the COVID-19 disease), but on the other, “there are the indirect effects that pregnant women may suffer from being exposed to this situation of uncertainty”.
As causes of stress that directly impact pregnant women due to the coronavirus , he points out:
“Confinement and social distancing, fear of infection, financial problems ** due to job loss, children’s schooling or having to live in the same home with a potentially violent partner, which increases the risk of violence from gender”.
But maternal stress also affects the baby , with examples from other past pandemics: fetuses who had the 1918 flu later suffered an increased risk of premature death from acute myocardial infarction, developing metabolic syndrome or being diagnosed with autism, schizophrenia o Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
For this reason, both the professor at the University of Granada and his colleagues, Fiona Alderdice (researcher at the University of Oxford, Center for Perinatal Epidemiology, United Kingdom) and Miguel Ángel Luque Fernández (professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom and the Biosanitary Research Institute of Granada), highlight the importance of taking care of mental health at this time.
His proposal happens because pregnant women, in addition to routine prenatal controls to take care of their physical and medical health, receive an adequate mental evaluation to minimize the psychological risks to which they are exposed, even more so during the current Covid-19 pandemic.
The nursing professor, Caparrós González, ends up delving into the need to take care of mental health during pregnancy:
“Psychological alterations can have repercussions on the physical health of the pregnant woman and the baby throughout their lives. They will affect both her and the baby that is gestating and these are problems that will appear over time ”.
The results of these studies have been published in the Spanish Journal of Public Health and the Journal of Reproductive and InfantPychology.
Via | University of Granada
Photos | iStock
In Babies and More | Stroking the newborn heals the effects of stress in pregnancy, The mother’s depression during pregnancy could affect the baby’s brain
