AP41847

Science Summary

There was a study done showing that pregnant women with schizophrenia have a higher risk of having delivery complications. Researches at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) and Women’s College Hospital (Women's College Hospital) found that women that have been diagnosed with schizophrenia are almost two times as likely to go through pre-eclampsia, pre-term birth, and a few other dangerous pregnancy and delivery complications as women without the disorder. Women from the ages of 15-49 that gave birth to live or stillborn infants were apart of another study in Ontario from 2002 to 2011. (Women's College Hospital) In this population-based study they found that women with schizophrenia required more intensive hospital resources, were more likely to experience placental abruption, had more than five times the risk of death within one year of giving birth, and much more. Dr. Simon Vigod, a psychiatrist at Women’s College Hospital and a scientist at ICES said that “This study gives us the information and tools to begin to look at what interventions we can put in place to help reduce the risk of pregnancy and delivery complications for women with schizophrenia.” (Women's College Hospital) Besides having delusions another symptom of schizophrenia is not taking very good care of ones self. (Wood, 398) Being pregnant can already be stressful and hard, so with the addition of being schizophrenic it makes sense that you would have higher risk factors in your pregnancy. Even so, more research needs to be done to further understand the reasons behind it all. We need to know if schizophrenia is really the cause of the higher risk factor or if it is just a correlation.(Wood, 17)

References: Women's College Hospital. "Women with schizophrenia at higher risk of pregnancy, delivery complications: Study." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 3 February 2014. .

Wood, Samuel E., Ellen R. Green. Wood, and Denise Roberts. Boyd. // Mastering the World of Psychology //. Third ed. Boston: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon, 2008. Print.

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