A mother's anxiety or depression during pregnancy may affect her child's sleep patterns early in life, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that babies and toddlers whose mothers had such symptoms during pregnancy tended to have more sleep problems than other young children.

The investigators suspect that elevated stress hormones that mark depression and anxiety may shape fetal brain development in a way that disturbs early-life sleep patterns.

A study of British troops shows that prolonged periods of deployment, above the recommended limit, harm mental health and lead to problems at home, particularly for troops on the front lines.

Among a random sample of 5,547 active duty men and women in Britain's armed forces, those who were deployed for 13 months or longer over a 3-year period, in breach of guidelines, were much more likely to show signs of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and to have problems at home during and after deployment, compared with troops deployed for shorter periods.

Read on  

Do you know what you're really like? Are you a happy person, are you positive or negative, do you see the glass half full or half empty? Stop - don't answer that yet. You may not actually know the right answer.

I had depression, ADHD (attention deficit hyperactive disorder) and mild OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) from a fairly early age. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how you look at things) none of the disorders were severe enough to get anyone's attention when I was a child.

Read on