New York [USA], Jul 22 (ANI): Researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Karolinska Institutet have found that children are more likely to have children when their father or mother has a mental illness. The study was published in the journal PLOS Medicine. The study showed for the first time that having a parent with a mental illness increases the risk of having a child with an infant, and this risk is higher than when the parent has the illness. Premature birth is linked to poor health problems for babies. It has long been known that women with psychiatric diagnoses are at increased risk of preterm birth, but less is known about the risk in offspring of fathers with psychiatric diagnoses and couples in which both parents had psychiatric diagnoses. For this study, the research team analyzed data on all live births to Nordic parents (parents born in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark and Iceland) in Sweden between 1997 and 2016. They obtained psychiatric diagnoses from the National Patient Registry and data on pregnancy from medical birth records. There are 1.5 million births in the group, and 15% of the babies are parents who have a mental health diagnosis. The team found a trend during early pregnancy in the children of parents with mental disorders. For parents without a diagnosis, 5.8% of babies were born prematurely. Father's diagnosis led to this figure in 6.3% of births and mother's diagnosis in 7.3% of births. When both parents were diagnosed, 8.3% of births were premature. The researchers also found that the risk was further increased for the offspring of parents - both mothers and fathers - who suffered from several co-existing psychiatric disorders. “Although the study was conducted in Sweden, if we assume that inherited genetic risk as well as biological or psychological stress can spread to other populations, the results are generalizable beyond Sweden. PhD, 4 professes in the United States at least one parent experienced in the presence of the center for research and treatment in the warranty. Michael Scardman, Professor Professor of the psychiatric in ICahn Mban Sanai and the author in the newspaper. "Although the behavior of the gestational parent (mother) has historically been involved in a variety of problems including depression, autism, schizophrenia, and even nutrition, the contribution of the non-gestational parent is a neglected but important topic in the child development literature. This new work shows that the psychiatric history of non-parents is influenced by the culture of reproduction. ted only mother. "Children of parents with mental illness have an increased risk of premature birth, and our research shows that both parents are important," says Weiyao Yin, PhD, postdoctoral researcher at Karolinska Institutet and co-author of the paper. Future studies should examine whether additional social support and prenatal care for families with a history of obesity may have an impact on pregnancy outcomes, the researchers said. This article was adapted from a press release written by PLOS Biology staff.