disaster stress on the unborn
I was watching a show on PBS last night concerning fetal development. They had a segment that involved a situation that occurred in Canada almost 20 years ago.
During one of the worst storms in the history of Ontario some areas suffered electrical failure for up to 3 weeks. No power, no heat, no communications, no deliveries and very little ability to travel or move about or get medical help in from outside, or get to the hospital. Most people were hardly prepared for this situation.
One of the OB/GYN doctors decided that since she would be accountable for every delivery until age 18 she should be tracking the numbers on children she delivered after these events.
What she discovered was astounding!
The children born after this event had 30% more developmental issues than normal, they had impaired language skills, an extremely high rate of autism, extreme allergy problems, and exhibited behavior problems during school.
The most amazing part of the study was that the problems manifest were in direct proportion to the length of time the pregnant mothers spent without power in the home.
One might wonder how people fared during the millions of years humans existed before electricity was common, but that was not the issue. The stress of being unprepared for this event was the issue.
These mothers were in extreme stress over how much food was available, how it would be prepared, how much firewood was available (No "normal" suburban home owner keeps a month of fire wood and food on hand!) and how much longer they would have to endure the situation since no communications were available.
They were staring into a bleak and vast unknown with no answers available. This modified the hormones getting into their unborn babies' bloodstreams and modified their development and changed their entire lives.
Winter is once again upon us. Snow is falling as I type and I have an 9 month pregnant young woman living next door. I could not help but think about her as I was watching the show.
Of course they are unprepared! That is the normal state of affairs.
What do you do when you can't leave the house for food?
You order a pizza!