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Patients & Consumers Conditions En Español Find an Allergist / Immunologist Just for Kids New Research Parent Resources Pollen Levels Publications Request a Speaker School Tools Seniors The Virtual Allergist™ Treatments Donate Now Search by Condition (A-Z) Search by Topic Allergy & Asthma Issues Educational Brochures Elements of Allergy and Asthma Order Public Education Materials Allergy Shots Drug Guide Sublingual Immunotherapy (SLIT)		JACI Highlights - April 2009 Mothers' anxiety during pregnancy is associated with asthma in their children Hannah Cookson, MB ChB, Raquel Granell, PhD, Carol Joinson, PhD, Yoav Ben-Shlomo, PhD; John Henderson The book and movie The Secret suggest that our reality is limited only by where we choose to go with our thoughts. The authors of a study, published in the April 2009 issue of The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, have put a new twist on The Secret’s theme. Their research suggests that maternal anxiety symptoms as an indicator of stress during fetal life may influence the development of asthma during childhood. In other words, mom’s stressful thoughts during pregnancy may have something to do with the child’s eventual reality: asthma. There is no explanation provided for how this programming effect happens. The authors contend that maternal prenatal stress poses a plausible risk factor for their offspring’s asthma. Though they offer some pretty detailed guesses, they cannot yet explain the precise physiologic mechanism. Although the authors reported a relationship between maternal anxiety symptoms and asthma, any explanation for these findings must be viewed with some caution. The researchers were unable to figure out the biological sources of anxiety in the women in the study and were unable to measure any biological changes to confirm anxiety had a biological effect in the children. Nevertheless, because the direct link between maternal stress and childhood asthma has been seen in this study, the next step could be to try some methods to reduce pregnant women’s stress and to then monitor the frequency of asthma that develops in their young children. The development of relatively straightforward interventions to reduce maternal stress in pregnancy makes it possible to test these hypothetical relationships in a controlled trial. Until then, it will all remain a “secret.”   <back>
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