Pregnant women benefit from close-knit community: Study

Washington, August 3 (ANI): A new study showed that a strong sense of community is very beneficial to pregnant women.

The study compared African American and European American women and women of lower and higher socio-economic status to see what effects a strong sense of community had on their health.

The pregnant African American women and women of lower socio-economic status had overall higher levels of stress, negative effect and blood pressure than women of higher status (race, education or income wise).

Cleopatra Abdou, a social health psychologist, found that these signs were absent among women with higher communalism.

"Communalism is associated with better health, especially for women of colour and women who have experienced socio-economic disadvantage at some point in the lifespan," Abdou said.

"Nevertheless, we see very clear evidence that higher socio-economic status is associated with higher communalism, regardless of your ethnic background," Abdou added.

"It seems that it's just easier to have more of every type of resource, including cultural resources, in this case communalism, when you have more money," Abdou said.

The paper is scheduled to appear this month in the American Psychological Association's Journal of Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology. (ANI)