Pregnancy is a stressful time, no doubt. I was not the person pregnant and yet I was stressed out too. Stress is one factor within our health regime that may be affecting the little ones in very unusual ways, in ways we would not predict or expect. The University of California (UC San Francisco) carried out research trying to determine if pregnancy impacts a child’s cell aging and if indeed race matters in that process.
Published in Psychological Medicine Magazine, The study’s answer is yes to both questions. The researchers followed 110 white and 112 black women from the age of 10 to about 40, as well as their first child averaging to the age of 8. Their finding showed that financial stress during the pregnancy period, such as job loss, or not having the ability to pay bills was linked to accelerated cellular aging of white children, but not black children.
Cellular age can be measured by examining the length of one’s telomeres, the productive DNA. Telomere lengths shorten with age, and the shorter telomeres predict earlier onset of illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease, along with earlier death. Prenatal stressors are linked to shorter offspring telomeres.
Black Women may indeed reduce the impact of maternal stress, having developed cultural and historical ways of dealing with undue stress. Infant death in the black community has been historically high compared to the white population demographic, Perhaps expecting bad news, the possible-probable death of an infant due to social, hospital and cultural stresses historically prepares a nonwhite woman for a child’s death, ultimately reducing their stress guards. Yes, I said it. Black Women have been socially and culturally prepared for bad news, the loss of a loved one, loss of employment, and feeling the regular stress of expected racism within our society. If you feel oppressed all the time, every single racist action you experience has less of a sting, therefore being less stressful.
Racial disparities over time act as an evolutionary tool preparing nonwhites, culturally and genetically to deal with their lived experience. If someone is poor, will the loss of something further be overly stressful? Perhaps, or that person will adapt. Adaption is the arm of evolution. The question we should be asking ourselves is “are Black Women mentally and possibly genetically more capable than other women”? Has cultural, social, historical, and genetic influences over time shaped and formed many of us, preparing us for life’s often oppressively stressful demands?
Stress has been the main indicator cause of death within the adult population, influencing every aspect of our lives and that of our children.
Steven Kaszab
Bradford, Ontario
[email protected]
