Abnormally Large Birth Weights of Psychiatric Patients

Family History, the Electroencephalogram and Perinatal Factors in Manic Conditions

“…I t was considered that the infant had an abnormally high birth-weight or head circumference when these went above the 97th percentile in the distribution of these measures for a large number of normal infants given in the aforementioned Geigy's Scientific Tables (Stuart & Stevenson, 1959). An investigation by Barry (1947) indicates that a high birth-weight might be correlated with mental disease.…”

Etiology, pathogenesis, and pathology.

“…Barry (8) studied the birth weights of a series of babies who became psychiatric patients, both neurotic and psychotic. He found that 20 per cent of these paticnts had abnormally large birth weights and speculated about this in terms of the possible relationship between the susceptibility to anoxemia and hemorrhage in large babies and psychiatric disorder.…”