Babies who undergo a difficult birth and are delivered using forceps are more likely to develop problems such as aggression during childhood compared with those born by Caesarean section, according to a study in China.
The researchers believe the behavioral problems may be linked to high levels of cortisol, a hormone the body produces when under stress and during a stressful and difficult birth.
“The association between mode of delivery and subsequent childhood psychopathology is possibly related to cortisol response,” they wrote in a paper published in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology yesterday.
Previous studies have found that cortisol levels in cord blood are lowest in babies born by elective Caesarean, followed by spontaneous vaginal delivery.
The highest levels of cortisol are found in those born by assisted vaginal delivery using forceps or vacuum extraction.
“Cortisol levels have been linked to childhood psychopathology, however, more studies are still needed to look at this in more detail,” wrote the scientists, led by Liu Jianmeng, deputy director of the Institute of Reproductive and Child Health at the Peking University Health Science Center.
The study involved 4,190 children who were born in China’s provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu, and they were assessed between the age of four and six for problems such as being withdrawn, anxious, depressed, attention difficulties and delinquent and aggressive behavior.
Such problems were lowest in children delivered by Caesarean section and highest in those delivered using instruments like forceps and vacuum, the researchers said.
Caesarean births are increasing in China, particularly in the richer southeastern parts of the country where rates have risen to 56 percent in 2006 from 22 percent in 1994.
Caesarean delivery on request by mothers is a major contributor to this trend. It accounted for 3.6 percent of all Caesarean births in 1994 and 36 percent in 2006 in southeast China.
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other
CODIFYING DISCRIMINATION: Transgender people would be sentenced to three years in prison, while same-sex relations could land a person in jail for more than a decade Iraq’s parliament on Saturday passed a bill criminalizing same-sex relations, which would receive a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, in a move rights groups condemned as an “attack on human rights.” Transgender people would be sentenced to three years’ jail under the amendments to a 1988 anti-prostitution law, which were adopted during a session attended by 170 of 329 lawmakers. A previous draft had proposed capital punishment for same-sex relations, in what campaigners had called a “dangerous” escalation. The new amendments enable courts to sentence people engaging in same-sex relations to 10 to 15 years in prison, according to the