This weekend, many mothers-to-be celebrated Mother’s Day, a welcome relief from the inherent stresses of pregnancy. Getting a handle on the stress can be difficult, but the answer may lie in testing an easy-to-collect, readily available body fluid. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have found saliva is useful for a whole slew of medical tests, including measuring the patterns of stress in pregnant women. It can be used to monitor cardiovascular risk and could be a cheap way of doing DNA testing.
