Findings suggest that maternal prenatal stress is associated with offspring socioemotional development, with the effect size for prenatal depression being more robust than for anxiety. Mitigating stress and mental health difficulties in mothers during pregnancy may be an effective strategy for reducing offspring behavioral difficulties, especially in groups with social disadvantage and greater severity of mental health difficulties.

The maternal CS measure is brief, can be easily trained, and takes 8 min to administer and code, making it potentially useful in primary healthcare settings.

To determine the pattern of gene expression in brains associated with mothering during the postpartum period, in the present study we assessed gene expression through microarrays in four groups of female rats: two groups of new mothers that were experiencing the hormonal and neurochemical changes associated with pregnancy and parturition, and two groups of virgin females that were not. Within each of these parity groups we assessed one group of animals that was exposed to and responded to pups and engaged in maternal behavior, and one group left without any exposure to pups and therefore had no maternal experience. We explored the pattern of expression of genes related to the hormones, neurotransmitters, and modulatory neuropeptides associated with maternal behavior within the medial preoptic area (MPOA) and the medial amygdala (MeA) in the rat. Within the MPOA there were significant main effects of pup exposure for the dopamine-related genes (DRD4 and dopamine transporter, DAT), the glucocorticoid-related gene (CYPX1B1a), the opioid receptor μ-1 gene (OPRM1) and the gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) receptor gene (GABAbRid). OPRM1 and the serotonin-related gene that regulates biosynthesis of serotonin (5HTR2A) showed a main effect of parity. For both sets of analyses, higher gene expression was associated with pup exposure and parity. Genes expressed in the MeA tended to reside in the glucocorticoid family. The microarrays were able to identify, on a transcriptional level, a list of candidate genes involved in maternal behavior and the factors that surround it.

Postpartum maternal experience produces long-lasting changes in maternal behavior in the mother rat, which can be altered by early-life isolation. Postpartum experience also affects the regulation of adult neurogenesis in the neural circuit underlying maternal behavior, in a region-specific manner. Female rats were reared either with their mothers (MR) or in isolation in an artificial rearing (AR) paradigm. In adulthood, rats were mated and separated from their pups at birth. The following day, dams were injected with a mitotic marker and either allowed to interact with pups (maternal experience) or left alone. Results show that MR rats that acquire a later maternal experience show increases in cell survival in parts of the excitatory limb of the maternal neural network (bed nucleus of the stria terminalis and nucleus accumbens), but no changes in the inhibitory limb (amygdala). In comparison to AR inexperienced rats, AR maternally experienced rats show no increases in cell survival in the excitatory limb, but a striking reduction in cell survival in the inhibitory limb. The results suggest that early preweaning maternal isolation alters the structural plasticity that occurs following a postpartum maternal experience.

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