It’s official; your newborn baby’s weight could teach you a LOT about their personality.
According to researchers at the University of Warwick, adults who weighed less than 3.3lbs at birth are more likely to be tense, anxious, easily worried, neurotic, and shy in social situations.
The study, which took place in Bavaria, Germany, was published by the BMJ.
"It is important that parents and teachers are educated about this and that they help them to socially integrate"
Speaking with The Independent, Professor Dieter Wolke, who led the study, said that the stresses experienced by babies in neonatal intensive care can also have long-term consequences for their personality.
He explained: “[This] may affect tendencies to withdraw, anxiousness, shyness and autistic features. These in turn make pre-term children more often targets of being picked on such as being bullied.
"Withdrawn children are often not troublesome and in school and social situations are often neglected or not noticed.
"It is important that parents and teachers are educated about this and that they help them to socially integrate."
However this might not be the only factor involved.
Researchers also said that shyness and neurotic tendencies in adults who were born very small could also be to do with brain development in the womb, especially in the right orbital frontal cortex which deals with social situations and understanding others.
They also suggested that complications in the birth could lead to over-protective parenting, with more rules and restrictions than other children might have.
This, researchers claim, can affect how outgoing the child will be when they are older.
Do you agree - are smaller babies more likely to grow up shy?
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