Prenatal maternal stress, fetal programming, and mechanisms underlying later psychopathology—A global perspective

Abstract

There is clear evidence that the mother's stress, anxiety, or depression during pregnancy can alter the development of her fetus and her child, with an increased risk for later psychopathology. We are starting to understand some of the underlying mechanisms including the role of the placenta, gene-environment interactions, epigenetics, and specific systems including the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and cytokines. In this review we also consider how these effects may be different, and potentially exacerbated, in different parts of the world. There can be many reasons for elevated prenatal stress, as in communities at war. There may be raised pregnancy-specific anxiety with high levels of maternal and infant death. There can be raised interpersonal violence (in Afghanistan 90.2% of women thought that "wife beating" was justified compared with 2.0% in Argentina). There may be interactions with nutritional deficiencies or with extremes of temperature. Prenatal stress alters the microbiome, and this can differ in different countries. Genetic differences in different ethnic groups may make some more vulnerable or more resilient to the effects of prenatal stress on child neurodevelopment. Most research on these questions has been in predominantly Caucasian samples from high-income countries. It is now time to understand more about prenatal stress and psychopathology, and the role of both social and biological differences, in the rest of the world.

Systematic review and meta-analysis on the relationship between prenatal stress and metabolic syndrome intermediate phenotypes

“…It has been demonstrated that PS can lead to an increase in DNA methylation at specific CpG sites within the 11β-HSD2 gene promoter in the placenta [67]. Furthermore, several studies have looked at alterations in the methylation of other genes, e.g., the glucocorticoid receptor (NR3C1) [68]. Other potential programming mechanism may include effects of PS on telomere biology [69].…”

Birth of a Father: Fathering in the First 1,000 Days

“…For at least two reasons, it is important to realize that fathering starts during pregnancy. First, the prenatal environment has far‐reaching consequences for child development (Glover, O'Donnell, O'Connor, & Fisher, ), and fathers can influence that environment positively (e.g., by quitting smoking) and negatively (e.g., by engaging in partner violence). Behaviors that protect the pregnant partner, such as ensuring that she gets sufficient rest and avoids pathogenic foods, protect the infant and benefit the baby’s development.…”

Environmental exposures and child and maternal gut microbiota in rural Malawi

“…In general, participants who did not provide data for this study had higher socio‐economic status than participants from whom data were analysed, but the differences were small and are unlikely to affect the validity of our results. This study only included characteristics of the living environment and basic maternal factors as exposure variables, but it is possible that unmeasured maternal factors like stress and exposure to violence could have an influence on children's gut microbiota in this population …”