The developing mammal needs to establish a degree of autonomy during fetal life in order to achieve independent survival after birth. It therefore develops homeostatic mechanisms necessary to guarantee its existence. But it passes through critical periods when it may be influenced by aspects of the intrauterine environment dependent on maternal nutrition and metabolism. These have been clearly demonstrated for implantation, organogenesis and parturition, all of which are influenced by maternal health, including nutritional intake. But apart from the striking effects on survival (e.g. in relation to implantation) or overt anatomical structure (organogenesis), recent evidence reveals that disturbances during critical periods can also affect homeostatic mechanisms. The effects may be subtle during development, but can nonetheless have long-lasting deleterious effects on health in adult life. This review concentrates primarily on how nutritional intake during pregnancy affects cardiovascular (especially arterial blood pressure) and blood glucose homeostasis in the offspring. These two areas are increasingly studied in humans (Rich-Edwards et al. 1997;Barker, 1998) and, whilst superficially distinct, they share some common aetiological features. To date, most of the studies in humans have been epidemiological so that, whilst they identify phenomena, they do not give insight into mechanisms. Awareness of this has recently shifted emphasis to prospective studies of smaller groups of people and to animal studies, the latter providing the more direct approach to understanding the processes involved. We concentrate on these animal studies in this brief review. In some of them an isocaloric low protein diet has been used to explore the mechanisms by which protein metabolism affects developing organs. Other studies have used varying degrees of global reduction in nutrition. It is noteworthy that in some of these studies effects on homeostatic development were produced even in the absence of body growth restriction. It is therefore possible to envisage a spectrum of health problems in adult life deriving from the influence of the intrauterine Experimental investigations in animals have highlighted the role of early reduced calorie and protein nutrition on fetal cardiovascular development, and the occurrence of a transition from a low fetal arterial blood pressure in late gestation to a high arterial blood pressure postnatally. These observations may explain the correlation between health, including appropriate nutrition, in pregnant women and the outcome of their pregnancies. Emphasis has been placed on low birth weight infants who have an increased risk of developing cardiovascular diseases, including hypertension, coronary heart disease and stroke in adulthood. Vascular pathology in adults is not always associated with low birth weight and animal experiments indicate that substantial changes in cardiovascular and endocrine function can result from maternal or fetal undernutrition without impairing fetal growth. Experimenta...