For New Yorkers, the events that transpired on the morning of 11 September, 2001 must have seemed like a nightmare. Immediately after the attack on the World Trade Centre that day, psychologists predicted that a wave of trauma would sweep across the country. Although this prediction turned out to be wrong, it is estimated that some 530,000 New York City residents suffered from symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the months following the attack.
Among the tens of thousands of people directly exposed to the World Trade Centre attack were approximately 1,700 pregnant women. Some of these women went on to develop symptoms of PTSD, and some of the children have inherited the nightmare that their mothers experienced on that day.
Within weeks of the attack, researchers at the Traumatic Stress Studies Division at the Mount Sinai Medical Centre in New York were inundated with telephone calls from people who had been traumatised by the event, including pregnant women. Rachel Yehuda, professor of psychiatry and neuroscience in charge of the division, set out to investigate how these women's experiences might affect their children.
Shivani D says that she tries to manage her stress levels with yoga and walking as she believes stress has a negative impact on her unborn baby.
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