Mental Injury of Pregnant Women

, Byung Yoon Lee

Original Article

Korean Journal of Legal Medicine 1986;10(2):49-51.

Department of Neuropsychiatry, Korea University, College of Medicine

Abstract

Clear scientific evidence that psychological trauma in pregnancy can have lasting effects on the fetus has been hard to establish. Nevertheless there is a long history of folk belief in such effects. In our culture it has been said that sudden terrifying experience of pregnant woman easily provoke miscarriage. Scientific observers may have been especially skeptical of such beliefs, but in the case of pregnancy, one might particularly look for ways in which the thalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical sympathetic nervous system responses to stress might adversely affect either the maternal physiology of pregnancy or the developing fetus. For example, a number of studies have shown that catecholamines can produce varied effects, including uterine hyperactivity and vasoconstriction, changes in fetal neuroendocrine growth and development and variations in the timing and quality of labor.