Generally speaking, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is something that a person develops after experiencing something shocking, traumatic, and life-threatening. A study finds that pregnant women who were 9 / 11 survivors can pass PSTD to their children. The trimester that the pregnancy was in at the time the event occurred plays a part.
I think we can all agree that September 11, 2001, was a traumatic day. People who were far from New York, and watching the news reports on television, were affected. Tens of thousands of people were directly exposed to the World Trade Center attack. According to an article in The Guardian, 1,700 survivors were women who were pregnant.
Some of the survivors developed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, (or PTSD). A new study finds that some of the children born to these moms inherited PTSD from their mothers as a result. The study has something to do with epigenetics.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can occur as a result of a wide variety of traumatic events. Soldiers can return from war with PTSD. Women who are raped often develop PTSD as a result. Anyone who has been in a life threatening situation where they felt helpless can potentially develop PTSD. This includes children who were exposed to abuse during childhood.
In the weeks following September 11, 2001, a lot of people called the Traumatic Stress Studies Division at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. Some of the people were pregnant woman. This resulted in a study led by Rachel Yehuda, professor of psychiatry and neuroscience, and the person in charge of the Stress Studies Division.
The study involved 38 women who were pregnant on 9 / 11, and who were at or near the World Trade Center at the time that the attack happened. Researchers took saliva samples and measured the level of cortisol, (a stress hormone), in the samples.
The researchers found that the pregnant women who had significantly lower cortisol levels in their saliva than other pregnant women who experienced the same trauma went on to develop PTSD. Around a year later, researchers took another sample. This time, they measured the cortisol levels in the children born to the mothers who were at, or near, the World Trade Center on 9 / 11.
The children born to moms who had PTSD had lower levels of cortisol than the children born to the moms who did not develop PTSD. The researchers also noticed that the lowered cortisol levels were the most apparent in the kids whose moms were in their third trimester of pregnancy when they were exposed to the attack on the World Trade Center towers. I strongly suggest you read the article from the Guardian that talks about this study for more details.
Image by Patrick Nouhailler on Flickr