Physical and mental stress during pregnancy may reduce the chances of having a boy, a new study says.
. Typically, about 105 males are born for every 100 females. But the male-to-female ratios in this study were 4:9 among women with physical stress and 2:3 among those with mental stress during pregnancy.
"Other researchers have seen this pattern after social upheavals, such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City, after which the relative number of male births decreased," said study leader Catherine Monk, director of Women's Mental Health at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City.
"This stress in women is likely of long-standing nature; studies have shown that males are more vulnerable to adverse prenatal environments, suggesting that highly stressed women may be less likely to give birth to a male due to the loss of prior male pregnancies, often without even knowing they were pregnant," Monk explained in a hospital news release.
Women under physical stress also were more likely to give birth prematurely, and their fetuses were more likely to have an indicator of slowerMeanwhile, mentally stressed mothers had more birth complications, according to the findings. "We know from animal studies that exposure to high levels of stress can raise levels of stress hormones like
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