Stein and Susser discovered that fetuses exposed to the famine early in gestation, when organs form, had an increased risk of central-nervous-system defects like spina bifida, in which the brain or spine is not fully developed. Other scientists found that a fetus starved early in development during the famine was at high risk for adult obesity. Two decades later, Stein and Susser’s son, Ezra Susser, went further. Now a pioneering epidemiologist at Columbia University, Susser examined psychiatric evaluations of adults who were Hunger Winter babies to study the theory that schizophrenia was the result of a defect in neural development. Susser and Hans Hoek in the Netherlands discovered that fetuses who received poor nutrition early in gestation were twice as likely to develop schizophrenia in adulthood as fetuses whose mothers had an adequate diet. Susser is now looking for links between prenatal nutrition and other mental illnesses. It’s a sad but revealing legacy of that season of devastation.
