Boys of mums who were stressed during pregnancy have higher rates of childhood infections

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-01-30 06:00

Australia; NSW; VIC; WA

Stress during pregnancy may negatively affect the development of the immune system in boy babies and increase their risk of more severe infections during childhood, according to Australian research. The study of more than 2,000 kids found that each additional stressful life event that occurred during pregnancy was linked with an increased risk of hospitalisation with all infection types for boys, but not girls, particularly for common viral infections of the respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts.

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conference: PLOS ONE

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Organisation/s: Telethon Kids Institute, The University of Newcastle, Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI), The University of Melbourne, Monash University

Funder: We acknowledge the support via core funding from the Raine Medical Research Foundation, The University of Western Australia (UWA), the Telethon Kids Institute, the UWA Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Science, the Women and Infants Research Foundation and Curtin University. The Raine Study is also funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (NHMRC; Grants #963209, #211912, #003209 and #353514), Australian Health Management, the Telstra Foundation, the Western Australian Health Promotion Foundation, the National Heart Foundation of Australia and Beyond Blue. Drs. Robinson, Moore, and Burgner are funded for this research by the NHMRC. Prof Zubrick is funded by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course (CE140100027).

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