The Dutch Hunger Winter

               The Dutch hunger winter was a food academic which took place in 1944 to 1945. During this famine the calorie in take went from  being a normal amount of 2000 to 1000 and by the end of the year 1944 the average calorie intake was about  500. The famine came as a result  from the rapid decrease of food stocks in the cities in the western Netherlands, due to  German blockades that cut off the food and fuel shipments from farm areas in order to punish the reluctance of the Dutch to aid the Nazi war effort.  Approximately 22,000 people died, but worst then then was the effect the famine had on the infants whose mothers were exposed to famine around conception or during pregnancy based on Last Menstrual Period.

However the Dutch Hunger Winter was the foundation for many new psychological findings, The Dutch Famine Birth Cohort Study found that children and pregnant women exposed to famine were more susceptible to health problems such as diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, microalbuminuria.  The Dutch hunger famine also attributed to illnesses such as Coeliac disease, clinical depression etc.  Academic research formed the hypothesis that first-trimester exposure to acute food deprivation is a risk factor for schizophrenia. New York State Psychiatric Institute, did an experiment in order to test this theory.  Participants were infants whose mothers were exposed to the famine during or immediately preceding that pregnancy,  control group were infants whose mothers did not experienceamine during pregnancy, and unexposed siblings.

The study looked at Three region during the famine west, north, and south. Results found that,  In the west region of the famine, children exposed to severe food deprivation during the first trimester showed a substantial increase for hospitalized schizophrenia in women, but not in men. However Moderate food deprivation during the first trimester, was not associated with increased risk of schizophrenia.  In the regions in the north and south, due to smaller numbers,  there was no exposure to severe famine. However children  exposed to moderate food deprivation (during the first trimester) illustrated a  inclination towards increased risks of schizophrenia in women.  The findings of this experiment  suggested that early prenatal nutrition can have a gender-specific effect on the risk of schizophrenia. This suggested that the stress of war can causes serious health problems such as cardiovascular disease. Stress hormones, due to starvation,  within the mothers blood during the famine  prompted a change in developing nervous systems  within the child. Stress can also effect the ability to learn, can cause depression, as well as other psychiatric disorders.