Women who were physically abused as children are more than twice as likely to develop endometriosis in adulthood, new research has found.
Endometriosis, which affects about one in 10 women worldwide, is a chronic gynaecological condition where tissue grows outside the uterus. It can cause severe pain during periods and sex, as well as bloating, fatigue, depression, anxiety, and infertility in some cases.
There is no cure for endometriosis, and doctors still don’t fully understand what causes it. But the new study, published in the journal Human Reproduction, sheds light on which women are at higher risk.
It included more than 1.3 million women born in Sweden between 1974 and 2001, more than 24,000 of whom were diagnosed with endometriosis.
Women who had difficult or traumatic childhoods were 20 per cent more likely to have endometriosis – and the more adverse experiences they had, the higher the risk, the study found.
This could include having a parent with mental illness, substance abuse, money problems or intellectual disabilities; having a teenage parent; or witnessing or experiencing violence or sexual abuse.
Women who had been exposed to violence or sexual abuse during childhood were at the highest risk of developing endometriosis, the study found.
And those who reported five or more adverse experiences had a 60 per cent higher chance of endometriosis, compared with those who had trauma-free childhoods.
Notably, researchers found no tie between having a death in the family and developing the condition.
“The results suggest that early life experiences can affect the body's health much later in life and highlight the importance of looking at the whole person, not just the symptoms,” Dr Marika Rostvall, one of the study’s authors and a researcher at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, said in a statement.
The link between childhood trauma and adult health
Our experiences during childhood, especially our earliest years, have a direct impact on our health and well-being well into adulthood.
Researchers have already found links between adverse experiences in childhood and a range of health problems, including poor mental health, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.
It’s not clear exactly how these experiences could be linked to endometriosis, but Rostvall raised two possibilities.
One is that childhood stress could affect the immune system, preventing it from effectively clearing endometrial tissue. It could also affect the body’s sensitivity to pain, making women more likely to experience severe symptoms that lead to an endometriosis diagnosis.
“I hope that the findings can be used to improve both preventive measures and treatment in healthcare,” Rostvall said.
