Actually there are a lot of things that go on when a person is stressed. Cortisol is released (which is a neuro-toxin) and the like. There is evidence that neonates are affected by the physiological and psychological state of their birth mother. If the birth mother is very stressed then this does indeed have a considerable influence on the developing infant. Neonates are able to pick up on their birth mothers being distressed and we are able to measure neonates increased physiological arousal matching their birth mothers increased physiological arousal.

To say that someone is talking 'complete rubbish' isn't a particularly supportive thing to say. I wouldn't have thought that it would have taken very much charity to extract what I extracted above.

You beg the question when you say that the benefits clearly outweigh the risks of taking medications in many instances. There are many people (with training as psychiatrists) who believe that the benefits are largely those of sedating people on the psychiatric ward such that they are more manageable to the staff. The long term side-effects of tardive dyskinesias and dementias shouldn't be under-estimated. People used a similar argument to you (and some still do) to advocate lobotomy. I think that it is an open question and the answer is very controversial...