Even though a long ago, science proved that a few conditions of the mental health exist, which are connected with genetics, one new research has discovered that traumas from people’s childhood can actually cause some changes in their DNA that may then also be passed down to their children or some other generations in the future.
Some researchers at the National Institutes of Health teamed with researches from the University of Helsinki in Finland, as well as the University of Uppsala in Sweden, in order to conduct the study.
They observed two different children groups, the first group consisting of children who had their parents evacuated during the Second World War from Finland, and the second group consisting of those that had their parents at home during the same period in Finland. There was quite a considerable difference between the first and the second group of children, and even between their parents.
While it looks like the people that stayed, as well as faced some dangers during the war were more probable to suffer a great trauma, according to a study from recently, the evacuated ones were met with bigger psychological fear and stress, as they were separated from families and had to learn new languages or adopt other cultures.
Also, it was discovered that the female kids who were born to evacuated women during the war had four times greater possibility of hospitalization as a result of problems with their mental health, in comparison to those born to their mothers who had the ability to stay at home. The outcome was not affected by their mothers being or not being hospitalized because of trauma.
Another interesting thing about evacuated mothers is that there had not been a marked distinction when it comes to the mental health of their sons.
However, the researchers are still not sure whether the distinction between the sons and the daughters, each affected in a different way, is relevant.
Some studies from previously, which were made on the effects of trauma at a time of pregnancy, confirmed that such traumas could affect children, but it was never before indicated that the experience of trauma by the mother when she was a kid could also affect her kids.
Researchers are working on to discover and confirm whether the trauma can actually be passed on granddaughters or other generations of the victims of the trauma.
The primary reason which researchers believed is possible is actually related to the style of parenting. There is a possibility that these mothers parented their kids quite differently as of their childhood trauma.
They probably chose some different ways as they wanted to avoid the experiencing of some similar trauma by their kids.
The second reason may be a new branch of the field of science, the one called epigenetics.
It is a branch which looks on the genetic markers, as well as studies how some things such as environment, culture, and also lifestyle may affect the DNA development. Within this area of epigenetics, in fact, there is an epigenetic inheritance that examines the way in which the impacts of the trauma can pass down to other generations.
There is one proof which backs up the epigenetics, and it is the difference in the health states and conditions between the black Americans, as well as the ones from other racial and cultural groups.
Another study also concluded that some issues like lower birth weight rates, also the increased rates of infant mortality, as well as chronic stress can be the result from ethnic discrimination for years which affected those groups of people genetically.
Although more researches have to be conducted in order to make sure that the results and findings from the studies we already mentioned, in fact, there are still a lot of things from which we can learn something.
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