An analysis of research by Australian scientists shows that the more times a pregnant woman is stressed, the greater the risk of her child being born with behavioral problems. While previous studies have found that a pregnant woman’s exposure to stress may have an impact on her child’s behavior after birth, the latest study focuses on the differences in the number, timing and type of stress a pregnant woman experiences on her child’s behavior later in life. Researchers at the Telesund Institute of Child Health in Australia analyzed medical data on 3,000 pregnant women to reach these conclusions. These pregnant women had experienced stress between 18 and 34 weeks of pregnancy. Thirty-seven percent of these pregnant women experienced more than two episodes of stress during pregnancy, and another 8 percent experienced more than six episodes of stress. These stressors were related to money, spousal relationships, unemployment, child education, pregnancy reactions and death of a loved one. The researchers then followed up the children born to pregnant women who had experienced emotional stress during pregnancy to investigate the behavioral problems they developed. The children were in the age groups of 2, 5, 8, 10 and 14 years old. The study found that the number of times a mother experienced stress during pregnancy increased the risk of later behavioral problems in her child more than when she experienced stress and what kind of stress she experienced, i.e., pregnant women who experienced stress more than three times during pregnancy.