Painter Rebecca C, Westendorp Rudi G J, de Rooij Susanne R, Osmond Clive, Barker David J P, Roseboom Tessa J
Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Academic Medical Center at the University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Hum Reprod. 2008 Nov;23(11):2591-5. doi: 10.1093/humrep/den274. Epub 2008 Jul 25.
Prenatal exposure to the Dutch famine is associated with an increased risk of chronic degenerative disease. We now investigate whether prenatal famine exposure affected reproductive success.
We assessed reproductive success (number of children, number of twins, age at delivery, childlessness) of men and women born around the time of the Dutch famine of 1944-1945 in the Wilhelmina Gasthuis, Amsterdam, whose birth records have been kept.
Women who were exposed to the Dutch famine of 1944-1945 in utero are more reproductively successful than women who were not exposed to famine during their fetal development; they have more offspring, have more twins, are less likely to remain childless and start reproducing at a younger age. The increased reproductive success of these women is unlikely to be explained by genes which favor fertility and are passed from mothers to their daughters. In utero exposure to famine did not affect the reproductive success of males.
These findings suggest that poor nutrition during fetal development, followed by improved nutrition after birth can give rise to a female phenotype characterized by greater reproductive success.
产前暴露于荷兰饥荒与慢性退行性疾病风险增加有关。我们现在调查产前饥荒暴露是否影响生殖成功率。
我们评估了1944 - 1945年荷兰饥荒时期前后出生在阿姆斯特丹威廉明娜加斯huis医院且出生记录保存完好的男性和女性的生殖成功率（子女数量、双胞胎数量、分娩年龄、无子女情况）。
子宫内暴露于1944 - 1945年荷兰饥荒的女性比胎儿发育期间未暴露于饥荒的女性生殖成功率更高；她们有更多后代，更多双胞胎，更不容易无子女且生育起始年龄更小。这些女性生殖成功率的增加不太可能由有利于生育并从母亲传给女儿的基因来解释。子宫内暴露于饥荒并未影响男性的生殖成功率。
这些发现表明，胎儿发育期间营养不良，随后出生后营养改善，可产生以更高生殖成功率为特征的女性表型。
