Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity

by Andrew Solomon

Genetic vulnerability to schizophrenia is subject to precipitating traumas, including variations in the uterine environment. Obstetrical, labor, and delivery complications are bad for a developing fetal brain, and schizophrenia patients are more likely to have a history of them. Maternal infections such as rubella and influenza during pregnancy also increase risk; the high rate of winter births of people who develop schizophrenia is probably linked to increased second-trimester maternal viral infections. Stressful events during pregnancy have been correlated with schizophrenia; the rate is higher, for example, for children of women who lived through a military invasion while carrying, or whose spouses died during their pregnancies.