Abstract Objective In this paper we evaluate the evidence for sex differences in fetal programming within the context of the proposed viability–vulnerability tradeoff. Methods We briefly review the ...literature on the factors contributing to primary and secondary sex ratios. Sex differences in fetal programming are assessed by summarizing previously published sex difference findings from our group (6 studies) and also new analyses of previously published findings in which sex differences were not reported (6 studies). Results The review and reanalysis of studies from our group are consistent with the overwhelming evidence of increasing risk for viability among males exposed to environmental adversity early in life. New evidence reported here support the argument that females, despite their adaptive agility, also are influenced by exposure to early adversity. Two primary conclusions are (i) female fetal exposure to psychobiological stress selectively influences fear/anxiety, and (ii) the effects of female fetal exposure to stress persist into preadolescence. These persisting effects are reflected in increased levels of anxiety, impaired executive function and neurological markers associated with these behaviors. Conclusions A tacit assumption is that females, with their adaptive flexibility early in gestation, escape the consequences of early life exposure to adversity. We argue that the consequences of male exposure to early adversity threaten their viability, effectively culling the weak and the frail and creating a surviving cohort of the fittest. Females adjust to early adversity with a variety of strategies, but their escape from the risk of early mortality and morbidity has a price of increased vulnerability expressed later in development.
Summary Mammalian pregnancy produces alterations in maternal physiology that are necessary for maintaining gestation, fetal development and parturition. These changes also may prepare the maternal ...brain for the unique demands of motherhood. Parous rodents exhibit long-term changes in neurological structure and function and human work suggests that other landmark events in the reproductive cycle, such as menarche and menopause, influence cognition. However, the influence of pregnancy on the human brain remains to be elucidated. This study indicates that verbal recall memory (but not recognition or working memory) diminishes during human pregnancy and that these decrements persist after parturition. Further, prenatal glucocorticoids and estrogen are associated with these alterations. To meet the challenges of motherhood, the female brain may be remodeled, a process that appears to be initiated prenatally. However, it is not often that adaptation is achieved without an associated cost. For the human, in the case of the new maternal brain, diminished memory performance may reflect such a cost.
•Mothers provide signals to the developing brain pre-and postnatally.•Parental signals profoundly influence a child’s mental and cognitive outcomes.•Patterns-specifically predictability-of these ...signals influence neurodevelopment.•Aberrant maternal signal patterns disrupt brain circuit maturation in rodents.•In humans, unpredictable maternal signals are linked to child mental illness risk.
Mental illnesses originate early in life, governed by environmental and genetic factors. Because parents are a dominant source of signals to the developing child, parental signals - beginning with maternal signals in utero - are primary contributors to children’s mental health. Existing literature on maternal signals has focused almost exclusively on their quality and valence (e.g. maternal depression, sensitivity). Here we identify a novel dimension of maternal signals: their patterns and especially their predictability/unpredictability, as an important determinant of children’s neurodevelopment. We find that unpredictable maternal mood and behavior presage risk for child and adolescent psychopathology. In experimental models, fragmented/unpredictable maternal care patterns directly induce aberrant synaptic connectivity and disturbed maturation of cognitive and emotional brain circuits, with commensurate memory problems and anhedonia-like behaviors. Together, our findings across species demonstrate that patterns of maternal signals influence brain circuit maturation, promoting resilience or vulnerability to mental illness.
Objective: Prenatal exposure to inappropriate levels of glucocorticoids (GCs) and maternal stress are putative mechanisms for the fetal programming of later health outcomes. The current ...investigation examined the influence of prenatal maternal cortisol and maternal psychosocial stress on infant physiological and behavioral responses to stress.
Methods: The study sample comprised 116 women and their full term infants. Maternal plasma cortisol and report of stress, anxiety and depression were assessed at 15, 19, 25, 31 and 36 + weeks’ gestational age. Infant cortisol and behavioral responses to the painful stress of a heel‐stick blood draw were evaluated at 24 hours after birth. The association between prenatal maternal measures and infant cortisol and behavioral stress responses was examined using hierarchical linear growth curve modeling.
Results: A larger infant cortisol response to the heel‐stick procedure was associated with exposure to elevated concentrations of maternal cortisol during the late second and third trimesters. Additionally, a slower rate of behavioral recovery from the painful stress of a heel‐stick blood draw was predicted by elevated levels of maternal cortisol early in pregnancy as well as prenatal maternal psychosocial stress throughout gestation. These associations could not be explained by mode of delivery, prenatal medical history, socioeconomic status or child race, sex or birth order.
Conclusions: These data suggest that exposure to maternal cortisol and psychosocial stress exerts programming influences on the developing fetus with consequences for infant stress regulation.
Background: Accumulating evidence indicates that prenatal maternal and fetal processes can have a lasting influence on infant and child development. Results from animal models indicate that prenatal ...exposure to maternal stress and stress hormones has lasting consequences for development of the offspring. Few prospective studies of human pregnancy have examined the consequences of prenatal exposure to stress and stress hormones. Method: In this study the effects of prenatal maternal psychosocial (anxiety, depression, and perceived stress) and endocrine (cortisol) indicators of stress on infant temperament were examined in a sample of 247 full-term infants. Maternal salivary cortisol and psychological state were evaluated at 18-20, 24-26, and 30-32 weeks of gestation and at 2 months postpartum. Infant temperament was assessed with a measure of negative reactivity (the fear subscale of the Infant Temperament Questionnaire) at 2 months of age. Results: Elevated maternal cortisol at 30-32 weeks of gestation, but not earlier in pregnancy, was significantly associated with greater maternal report of infant negative reactivity. Prenatal maternal anxiety and depression additionally predicted infant temperament. The associations between maternal cortisol and maternal depression remained after controlling for postnatal maternal psychological state. Conclusions: These data suggest that prenatal exposure to maternal stress has consequences for the development of infant temperament. (Contains 3 tables and 2 figures.)
The global burden of early life adversity (ELA) is profound. The World Health Organization has estimated that ELA accounts for almost 30% of all psychiatric cases. Yet, our ability to identify which ...individuals exposed to ELA will develop mental illness remains poor and there is a critical need to identify underlying pathways and mechanisms. This review proposes unpredictability as an understudied aspect of ELA that is tractable and presents a conceptual model that includes biologically plausible mechanistic pathways by which unpredictability impacts the developing brain. The model is supported by a synthesis of published and new data illustrating the significant impacts of patterns of signals on child development. We begin with an overview of the existing unpredictability literature, which has focused primarily on longer patterns of unpredictability (e.g. years, months, and days). We then describe our work testing the impact of patterns of parental signals on a moment‐to‐moment timescale, providing evidence that patterns of these signals during sensitive windows of development influence neurocircuit formation across species and thus may be an evolutionarily conserved process that shapes the developing brain. Next, attention is drawn to emerging themes which provide a framework for future directions of research including the evaluation of functions, such as effortful control, that may be particularly vulnerable to unpredictability, sensitive periods, sex differences, cross‐cultural investigations, addressing causality, and unpredictability as a pathway by which other forms of ELA impact development. Finally, we provide suggestions for prevention and intervention, including the introduction of a screening instrument for the identification of children exposed to unpredictable experiences.
Postpartum depression (PPD) represents a significant threat to maternal-child health. Although PPD is common, with an estimated prevalence of 10% to 15%, critical questions concerning its etiology ...remain unanswered. Existing studies seem to provide conflicting evidence regarding the relation between placental corticotrophin-releasing hormone (pCRH) and the development of PPD. The purpose of the present investigation was to determine whether maternal prepartum hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal and placental dysregulation, in particular elevated midgestational pCRH, represent markers of risk for the development of PPD symptoms.
One hundred seventy adult women with singleton, term pregnancies were recruited during the first trimester and participated in study visits at 15, 19, 25, 31, and 36+ weeks' gestation and at 3 and 6 months postpartum. At each prenatal visit, blood samples were obtained and assayed to determine maternal cortisol, adrenocorticotropic hormone, and pCRH concentrations. Depressive symptoms were assessed at all visits.
Depressive symptoms at 3 months postpartum were associated with elevated midgestational pCRH (partial r = 0.26; p < .01) and also accelerated trajectories of pCRH (B values ranged from 6.9 to 8.3, p < .05). Placental CRH was not predictive of PPD symptoms at 6 months postpartum. Furthermore, prepartum cortisol and corticotrophin profiles were not associated with PPD symptoms.
The current prospective study provides results that reconcile both the positive and negative findings in the existing literature and identifies elevated pCRH as a marker of risk for the development of PPD symptoms.
Information about the adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescent and adult mental health is growing, yet the impacts on preschool children are only emerging. Importantly, environmental ...factors that augment or protect from the multidimensional and stressful influences of the pandemic on emotional development of young children are poorly understood.
Depressive symptoms in 169 preschool children (mean age 4.1 years) were assessed with the Preschool Feelings Checklist during a state-wide stay-at-home order in Southern California. Mothers (46% Latinx) also reported on externalizing behaviors with the Strengths & Difficulties Questionnaire. To assess the role of environmental factors in child mental health we examined household income, food insecurity, parental essential worker status and loss of parental job, as well as preservation of the structure of children's daily experiences with the Family Routines Inventory.
Sixty-one percent of families' incomes were below the living wage and 50% had at least one parent who was an essential worker. Overall, preschoolers’ depressive and externalizing symptoms were elevated compared to pre-COVID norms. Practice of family routines robustly predicted better child mental health, and this protective effect persisted after covarying income, dual-parent status and food insecurity as well as maternal depression and stress.
The stress of the COVID-19 pandemic is exacting a significant toll on the mental health of preschool children. Importantly, maintaining a structured, predicable home environment by adherence to family routines appears to mitigate these adverse effects, providing empiric basis for public health recommendations.
Poor sleep quality is associated with preterm birth Okun, Michele L; Schetter, Christine Dunkel; Glynn, Laura M
Sleep (New York, N.Y.),
2011-Nov-01, 2011-11-01, 20111101, Letnik:
34, Številka:
11
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Preterm birth (PTB) is a major public health priority and the most common adverse pregnancy outcome. Several risk factors have been identified, but a gap in the understanding of the underlying ...etiology of PTB persists. Poor sleep quality is a correlate of adverse health outcomes. Therefore, we evaluated whether sleep quality during pregnancy was a clinically relevant risk factor for PTB.
Observational.
Participants included 166 pregnant women (mean age = 28.6 ± 5.5 years). Self-report questionnaires, including the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), were administered at 14-16, 24-26, and 30-32 weeks gestation. Logistic regression models were used to evaluate whether sleep quality was associated with preterm delivery. Poor sleep quality was a predictor of preterm birth, with the largest effects in early pregnancy (14-16 weeks) (OR: 1.25 95% CI 1.04-1.50, P = 0.02) and more modest effects in later pregnancy (30-32 weeks) (OR: 1.18 95% CI 0.98-1.42, P = 0.07). With every one-point increase on the PSQI, the odds of preterm birth increase 25% in early pregnancy and 18% in later pregnancy.
Poor sleep quality, in both early and late pregnancy, is associated with an increased risk of delivering preterm. Currently the specific pathway(s) through which disturbed sleep contributes to PTB are unknown. We suggest that poor sleep may contribute to increased risk for PTB both independently, as well as in conjunction with other established risk factors, such as stress.
The COVID-19 era is a time of unprecedented stress, and there is widespread concern regarding its short- and long-term mental health impact. Adolescence is a sensitive period for the emergence of ...latent psychopathology vulnerabilities, often activated by environmental stressors. The present study examined COVID-19′s impact on adolescent depression and possible influences of different domains of social connectedness (loneliness, social media use, social video game time, degree of social activity participation).
A community sample of 175 adolescents (51% boys, mean age = 16.01 years) completed questionnaires once before and twice during the COVID-19 pandemic. Piecewise growth modeling examined the acute (7 weeks) and persistent (8 months) effects of COVID-19 on depressive symptoms, and differences across sex and social connectedness.
Significant increases in depressive symptoms followed pandemic onset for boys and girls. However, this increase was earlier and more pronounced among girls than boys, whose depression only increased significantly during the persistent period and to a lesser degree. Trajectories of depression were influenced by loneliness and social connections.
Most participants had economic stability and minimal exposure to the virus. Exacerbation of depressive symptoms may be more severe in higher risk populations.
Adolescent depression levels have increased during COVID-19, and are higher for girls and those who are lonely. Enhanced screening and management for adolescent depression and social connectedness could play a critical role in mitigating the negative mental health fallout of COVID-19 and future pandemics within this population.
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