Another Disorder Blamed on Moms
Get this headline from Reuters health news today: "Kids with stressed moms more prone to asthma."
Are our kids doomed, or what?
The article goes on to discuss a Canadian study suggesting that kids whose mothers suffer from depression and anxiety are 25 percent more likely to develop asthma.
Why is that? Anybody's guess.
Some of the guesses the article puts forth are that depressed and anxious moms are more likely to smoke, which can make their offspring more prone to asthma; or that depressed moms are less likely to cuddle and breastfeed and bond with their babies, depriving their children of protective factors.
Interestingly, the article mentions that "the risk appeared to intensify for children in high-income households or who had more than one sibling."
The study authors are careful to specify that there are other factors involved in asthma, including genetics (mom again, maybe), maternal smoking (hi, mom!), and environment (not specifically mom's fault, maybe, but what kind of car are you driving, lady, and how neat is your house?)
It's good to know what causes things, I guess. But don't stressed and depressed moms have enough to worry about without having blame for their kids' breathing problems laid at their feet?
What do you think of this alleged connection? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Photo by Getty Images
Which came first, the anxiety and depression or the asthma? I know I was looking at my daughter this morning, mulling over how fragile and yet how strong life can be. Spending months at NICU can be hard, for everyone involved, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they discovered later that having an asthmatic child leads to *drumroll* stress and depression.
I remember, not too long ago, there was a study done that said children whose parents put nightlights in their bedrooms were more likely to become nearsighted. Then, for the length of one breath, parents wondered….Am I hurting my child by putting a nightlight in her room??? Several months later, that study was “debunked” when a logical explanation came out that nearsighted parents were more likely to need a nightlight to maneuver in the dark for nighttime feedings…therefore, nearsighted parents are more likely to have nearsighted children……..GENIUS!
Scientists perform studies to earn a paycheck. Some are hits some are misses. We are all human. And every once in awhile someone gets to figure out how to cure something…BONUS!
(”Common Sense is very uncommon.”Horace Greeley)
Remember how stuttering was blamed on overbearing moms for years and years? It was basically considered a psychiatric disorder. And then recently, voila, someone discovered that stuttering is actually due to a chemical mis-step in the brain and is certainly NOT mom’s fault! These theories are just a shot in the dark, and mom is always the nearest target!
Of course it’s all Mom’s fault…who else is there to blame? I remember when they thought autism was due to “refrigerator Mothers” and then that was debunked. Now it will be it’s the MOTHER’S genes that are to blame…bad mother you!! No wonder we have anxiety and depression…ewww…we might have the plague…stay away!!!
EVERYTHING is blamed on Moms. Moms don’t do enough of this and too much of that. Yet, the one thing I think we need to sep back and remember is that if weren’t for our Moms, we wouldn’t be here. The disability community wouldn’t exsist without moms pushing for disability rights and better education. The health care community wouldn’t exsist without moms pushing for better care for their children. Yet, the VERY people who have helped perpetuate the species, who have helped to better the world in their own ways, and have borne the very large brunt of raising the children of the world are the ones responsible for “getting it wrong.” I would be willing to bet money that I don’t have that most of the people who conduct these studies would be male, blame their moms for some shortcoming in their lives, and/or just think they could do better. (They are free to step up and take-up the apron, so to speak, at any time.) How much do you want to bet this study will be considered flawed sometime in the near future becuase the increase of asthma can be tied to a variety of other reasons not necessarily to Moms and their shortcomings. However, there will be NO major news coverage for that announcement. No, we will just continue to let the moms of the world think that everything is their fault. And scientists wonder why depression among mothers is up. Are you kidding me?!?!
How can mothers be to blame? I thought a study already showed that we are abandoning our kids to schools and child care centers. We never even see our kids, so there’s no way a mother’s influence can have anything to do with this. Shouldn’t we be blaming the child care providers and teachers, here? Ha. And what about the study that said stress was actually healthy? I thought I was being a benefit to my child by being stressed out. :pOK, I’m just being snarky, but really, mothers just can’t win, can they?