Stress can happen due to a number of reasons during pregnancy. Women who have faced stressful events during pregnancy may have children who can face coordination problem in their body movements as teenagers.

In the study, the researchers asked 2,900 women in Australia twice during their pregnancy, at 18 weeks and 34 weeks, whether they have faced any stressful even when they expecting baby. Stress events included financial problems, death of family member or friend, separation or divorce.

In the next phase, the researchers have assessed these women’s children. Main aim of the researchers was to assess the overall coordination and ability to control body movements. It was checked at three time points, when they were 10, 14 and 17 years old.

After the complete assessment, the researchers found that children who were born to mothers who have faced three or more stressful events during pregnancy received less score on the tests at all three time points than children of mothers who witnessed lesser number of stressful events.

It shall be noted that stressful events happening in later pregnancy have more effect on child’s coordination than the events taking at earlier stages. Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics at Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York, said, “Even though it is not clear whether or how the results of the tests conducted in the study may translate into real-life impacts for the participants, it is believed to be related with the development of the cerebellar cortex”.