Pregnancy complications can increase child’s risk of developing schizophrenia

CNN reports that new research suggests that complications during pregnancy could increase nearly five-fold the child’s risk of developing schizophrenia later in life in high-risk individuals. These complications appear to “turn on” genes in the placenta that have been associated with schizophrenia, the researchers said.

“The complications that mattered were very serious obstetric complications like pre-eclampsia, intrauterine growth restriction and premature rupture of membranes without induction of labor,” said Dr. Daniel Weinberger, director and CEO of the Lieber Institute for Brain Development at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and a leading author of the new study. “And these kinds of stresses happen in about 15% of pregnancies, so it’s not an uncommon environmental risk factor,” he added.

The study, published Monday in the journalNature Medicine, looked at the genetic profiles and pregnancy histories of nearly 4,000 adults from four countries: the United States, Italy, Germany and Japan.