Reproductive pathology and offspring outcomes in women with schizophrenia and affective psychoses: Genetic vulnerability or environmental risk?

Abstract

While a number of studies have examined pregnancy and birth abnormalities in mothers of adults with schizophrenia, mostly using retrospective data, limited evidence is available on pregnancies and offspring outcomes in women with schizophrenia and hardly any evidence on women with affective disorders. The present study, based on record linkage across five prospectively cumulated population databases (psychiatric case register; maternal and child health research database; birth defects registry; cerebral palsy register; and intellectual disability register), identified 1,831 "case" women born between 1931 and 1980 who had been diagnosed with either schizophrenia (N = 382) or affective psychos..