The period of pregnancy is a very important and critical phase for mother and child, during which the mental state of the mother directly affects the health of the child, however, according to a study, the stress of the mother during pregnancy can reduce the IQ of boys.
Stress During Pregnancy
A new study warns that stress in the later stages of pregnancy can reduce boys’ intelligence before they are born. During pregnancy, cortisol levels increment. It ought to be noticed that cortisol is a chemical that is delivered in case of pressure. It helps reduce stress.
All pregnant women carrying girls have higher cortisol levels than women carrying boys. Elevated degrees of the pressure chemical cortisol during the seventh month of pregnancy can frustrate young men’s level of intelligence scores at age 7, as per the consequences of a new report in Denmark. However, surprisingly, this level of cortisol does not affect the mental health of girls, but it is a guarantee of better mental health in them. According to research, cortisol plays an important role in fetal development in both boys and girls. During pregnancy, a catalyst called 11beta-HSD2, present in the placenta, controls how much cortisol that arrives at the baby by switching it over completely to its latent structure, called cortisone.
According to researchers, speech and language skills in children aged one to three years depend on their mothers’ high cortisol levels during the seventh month. In the new study, researchers analyzed data on the cortisol and cortisone levels of 943 pregnant women during the seventh month and IQ tests of 943 of their 7-year-old children.
If cortisol is high in women who give birth to boys during this period, it affects the mental health of the child up to the age of 7, thus they score lower on IQ tests, but girls of the same age have higher IQs. Scored better on the test when their mothers had higher levels of cortisone in their urine. “As far as anyone is concerned, this is the primary review to take a gander at the connection between urinary cortisone levels during pregnancy and level of intelligence scores in kids,” said lead creator Dr. Anja Fingerdreier, the study’s lead author.