My two daughters share a room, where they sleep in bunk beds -- older daughter on top, younger daughter on the bottom bunk. Here's how they started the morning when I went in to wake them up:

Younger daughter, to me: "I had trouble sleeping last night because my belly hurt."

Older daughter: "Did not!"

How 'bout those reflexes? All she had to hear was "trouble sleeping" and she automatically went on the attack, assuming she was being blamed for something.

As it happens, I had just clicked on this story when it came time to wake them up:

Women who are stressed about money, relationships and other problems during pregnancy may give birth to babies who are predisposed to allergies and asthma, U.S. researchers said on Sunday.

The findings, presented at a meeting of the American Thoracic Society in Toronto, suggest a mother's stress during pregnancy may have lasting consequences for her child.

"This research adds to a growing body of evidence that links maternal stress such as that precipitated by financial problems or relationship issues to changes in children's developing immune systems, even during pregnancy," Dr. Rosalind Wright of Harvard Medical School in Boston said in a statement.

Wright and colleagues found mothers who were the most distressed during pregnancy were most likely to give birth to infants with higher levels of immunoglobulin E or IgE -- an immune system compound -- even though their mothers had only mild exposure to allergens during pregnancy.

Studies in animals have found that a mother's stress amplifies the effects of allergen exposure on the immune system of the developing offspring. The Harvard team set out to see if they could find the same in humans.

This makes sense to me given my family's history. My older brother was born in 1955 in the hospital at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba, while my father was serving with the marines. That was two years after the start of the Cuban Revolution; Fidel Castro was released from prison a couple months before my brother was born.

As you can imagine, that would be somewhat stressful for a young mother who's pregnant with her second child. And my brother ended up having a lot of problems with allergies and asthma as a kid.

Which brings me back to my daughters, and a question left over from the research:

Is it possible for the process to work in reverse? Can kids who create stress for their parents give the adults more severe allergies than they already have? I feel an attack coming on ...

Monday blog meat

* In praise of (natural) trans fats.

* Apple and grape juice may prevent arterial blockages. I guess that means they're slightly better for you than packets of granulated sugar.