More and more experiments are made every day to discover what cause schizophrenia. A study called Prenatal Determinants of Schizophrenia, which is looking at factors that may influence schizophrenia risk, such as prenatal infection, nutrition and chemical exposure discovered a serious connection between schizophrenia and the children whose mothers have the flu during pregnancy. This children have a higher risk to develop schizophrenia then the other children.
It is known that schizophrenia is a brain, a mental disorder. The causes of schizophrenia are connected with all the factors that affect the babies brain from the moment that they are in their mothers wombs. If the mother gets flu during the pregnancy, mostly during the first half of it, it might disturb the grows process, including the brain grows process, and this mothers babies has a bigger risk to develop schizophrenia or other brain diseases.
The study examined the women’s blood samples, looked for antibodies to the influenza virus (the virus that cause flu), and tracked down whether their offspring had developed schizophrenia or not. The study indicated that those who had the flu during the first half of pregnancy were three times more likely than non-infected women to have children who developed schizophrenia later.
The study should be repeated and further analysis done before cause-and-effect conclusions are made. It isn’t sure if pregnant women must be vaccinated against influenza, because we don’t know if has side effects and if deserve the risk.
What we must remember is that the risk to develop schizophrenia for this children exist and is a high risk that mother with flu during pregnancy must take.
Important is that a great step was made in finding what can produce schizophrenia and encourage us in the future, to research more and more and to finance this kind of studies.
Visit my Schizophrenia website for more information on this subject. Also, don't forget to check out the Paranoid Schizophrenia page.
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