Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston released study results which found that pregnant women who have a stressful pregnancy can have children who have a higher risk of developing asthma later in life.

The study was conducted with 557 pregnant women from Boston, New York, and Baltimore, with a large number of women belonging to ethnic minority groups and almost 20% of them living below the poverty line. Also, each participant had at least one family member who had asthma in their medical history. The women were asked details about the stressors in their lives including financial, marital, domestic violence, and any other stressors that they faced on a daily basis. Researchers collected blood from the infants' cords and analyzed them for the production of various cytokines which are indicators of how the immune system of the infant would respond to external environmental conditions.

When compared to infants born to mothers with low stress levels, the researchers found a significant difference in the markers to conclude that infants with higher levels of cytokines may be at a higher risk of developing asthma and allergies as they grow older. 
 
The findings will be published in the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. (ANI).