Perinatal risk factors for schizophrenia: Diagnostic specificity and relationships with maternal psychopathology

Abstract

Although a growing body of evidence supports the hypothesis that exposure to obstetric complications (OCs) increases the vulnerability for schizophrenia, some questions remain unanswered regarding the diagnostic specificity and the etiological significance of this association. Associations with a history of OCs have been reported for other severe psychiatric disorders, such as autism, anorexia nervosa, or psychotic affective disorder. Thus, OCs may increase in a relatively non-specific way the vulnerability for a range of severe mental disorders, the expression of this vulnerability depending on the interaction between OCs and other risk factors, such as the genetic liability for specific psychiatric disorder, or exposure to later environmental risk factors. The causal pathway between OCs, maternal psychopathology, and psychotic outcome in the offspring is not fully elucidated. The directions of the associations are often bi-directional, and the mediating variables, if any, are not clearly identified. OCs may have a direct negative impact on fetal brain development, may be on the causal pathway between prepartum maternal depression/exposure to stress and increased risk of schizophrenia, or may indirectly increase the risk of child's later psychiatric disorder by acting as risk factors for maternal postpartum depression. The links and possible interactions between somatic perinatal risk factors and maternal psychopathology in the association with offspring's increased vulnerability for psychosis have to be further explored.

Association between low height and eating disorders: Cause or effect?

“…7 The literature shows that poor fetal development, in terms of weight and length, is associated with low adult height, 7,8 early menarche age, 9 and an increased risk of several psychiatric and nonpsychiatric diseases. [10][11][12] Few studies to date have explored the relationship between height and eating disorders. [13][14][15][16] These studies usually deal with small samples of early-onset anorexia nervosa cases and show the presence of a growth retardation usually-but not always 13 -attributed to malnutrition and endocrinological alterations.…”

Exposure to Obstetric Complications in Relation to Subsequent Psychiatric Disorders of Adolescent Inpatients: Specific Focus on Gender Differences

“…Schizophrenia studies implicate, however, that environmental factors are not simply a causal continuum of genetic factors. Compared to siblings, normal controls and psychiatric controls, schizophrenic inpatients seem to be more likely to have experienced perinatal obstetric complications [42]. Studies in bipolar disorder also support this view because they have found a significant excess of obstetrical complications among bipolar inpatients compared with their own biological siblings [29].…”

Perinatal Oxygen Restriction Does Not Result in Reduced Rat Frontal Cortex Synaptophysin Protein Levels at Adulthood as Opposed to Postmortem Findings in Schizophrenia

“…Epidemiological (Cannon et al 2002;Verdoux and Sutter 2002) and experimental animal studies (Rees and Inder 2005;Boksa 2004;Boksa and El-Khodor 2003) suggest an association between a variety of obstetric complications and an increased risk for schizophrenia and support the neurodevelopmental hypothesis of the disorder (Cannon et al 2002). The obstetric complications include maternal viral infections, starvation, or malnutrition, stress, premature, or early birth (low birth weight and/or short gestational age; Verdoux and Sutter 2002).…”