Perinatal Complications and Clinical Outcome within the Schizophrenia Spectrum

In a prospective study of offspring of schizophrenic mothers, perinatal complications reported in midwife protocols were analysed for those offspring who, as adults, were diagnosed as schizophrenic, borderline schizophrenic or as not suffering from mental illness. The schizophrenics were found to have had the most complicated births, and the borderlines, the least complicated births. This difference is interpreted in terms of a 'diathesis-stress' model. It is proposed that birth complications can decompensate borderline individuals towards schizophrenic breakdown.