"Archives of General Psychiatry."

Eating Disorders: perinatal complications, a risk factor?

Some perinatal complications increase the risk of anorexia and bulimia, say Italian researchers in the journal

The eating disorders are usually attributed to a combination of genetic and environmental factors, remember Angela Favaro and colleagues at the University of Padua. A correlation between complications during neural development of the fetus and anorexia or bulimia has been reported and some studies have shown a link between obstetric complications and anorexia.

The researchers studied obstetric complications encountered at birth by 114 women with anorexia, 73 with bulimia and a control group of 554 who have any of these problems, all born between 1971 and 1979 in the same Italian hospital.

Maternal anemia during pregnancy, maternal diabetes mellitus, preeclampsia, placental necrosis, neonatal cardiac problems, hypothermia shortly after birth, hypo-all these complications are associated with an increased risk of becoming anorexic growing, report scientists. About bulimia, it most commonly affects people, babies were affected by neonatal hyporesponsiveness, early to absorb food difficulties, or those who had a small size or low birth weight.

Moreover, large number of perinatal complications accelerates the onset of anorexia. People who had suffered more than five perinatal complications, on average, presented the first signs of this disorder to 16 years and four months, against 18 and 10 months for those who had no complications.

"These results appear to bear some resemblance to what has been observed about schizophrenia and, with less evidence about other severe psychiatric disorders," the authors note, and called for further research on the exact nature of the relationship between a particular perinatal complication and given psychiatric disorder.