If you are severely stressed during pregnancy, it can: • change the temperament of your child. Infants become more irritable, less consolable. • lower your baby’s IQ. The average decline is about 8 points in certain mental and motor inventories measured in a baby’s first year of life. Using David Wechsler’s 1944 schema, that spread can be the difference between “average IQ” and “bright normal.” • inhibit your baby’s future motor skills, attentional states, and ability to concentrate—differences still observable at age 6. • damage your baby’s
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