Maternal Stress Worsens Child Asthma

A team of Japanese researchers, writing in BioMed Central's open access journal BioPsychoSocial Medicine, carried out a research that concluded that stressed out mothers can worsen the gravity of their children's asthma symptoms, especially if the children are very young.

The scientists focused on 223 mothers for an entire year, and analyzed the way that their stress levels, coping styles and parenting methods were linked with the disease status of their 2 to 12 year old children.

Jun Nagano, from the Kyushu University Institute of Health Science, Fukuoka, Japan, who worked with a team of researchers on the study, discovered that angry or irritated mothers, or those who were suppressing their emotional expressions, had a tendency of worsening their children's asthma symptoms.

The evaluation of mothers' attitude of rejection, domination or indulgence towards their kids, as well as their chronic stress types and coping styles, was made through questionnaires.

Mothers who were overprotective with their children (over the age of 7 years old), worsened their asthmatic condition.

For children under 7, mothers who were chronically angry or irritated, or had a tendency of suppressing emotional expressions, triggered a more severe disease in the following year.

Nagano said that “a mother's stress (or wellbeing) may be verbally or non-verbally conveyed to her child, and affect the child's asthmatic status via a psycho-physiological pathway, such as by immunoreactivity to allergens or a vulnerability to airway infections.

“Our results suggest that the mothers of younger children may be advised not to worry about falling into 'unfavorable' parenting styles, but to pay more attention to the reduction of their own stress; and that the mothers of older children may be encouraged to increase their own wellbeing via proper egocentric and self-defensive activities, being careful to avoid too much interference with their children,” he concluded.

This study is one of the few that focus on the theory that certain parenting styles can affect the clinical status of asthmatic children.