Department of Developmental, Clinical and Cross-Cultural Psychology, Tilburg University, 5000 LE Tilburg, the Netherlands.
Dev Psychobiol. 2009 Nov;51(7):553-63. doi: 10.1002/dev.20393.
Associations between prenatal maternal emotional complaints and child behavioral and cognitive problems have been reported, with different relations for boys and girls. Fetal programming hypotheses underline these associations and state that the early development of the HPA-axis of the children may have been affected. In the present study, differences in cortisol responses of prenatally exposed and nonexposed children are examined for both sexes separately. Cortisol response patterns of a group preschool aged children that were prenatally exposed to high levels of maternal emotional complaints (N = 51) were compared to a nonexposed group (N = 52). Child saliva was collected at the start of a home visit (T1), 22 min after a mother-child interaction episode (T2), and 22 min after a potentially frustrating task (T3). Repeated measures analyses showed that prenatally exposed girls showed higher cortisol levels across the three episodes compared to nonexposed girls. No differences were found in boys. Maternal prenatal emotional complaints might be related to child HPA-axis functioning differently for boys and girls.
先前的研究表明，母亲孕期的情绪抱怨与儿童的行为和认知问题存在关联，且这种关联在男孩和女孩身上有所不同。胎儿发育编程假说强调了这种关联，并指出儿童的 HPA 轴的早期发育可能受到了影响。本研究分别对男女儿童进行了研究，以探讨其在皮质醇反应方面的差异。研究人员比较了一组在孕期经历了母亲高情绪抱怨的学龄前儿童（N=51）与未暴露组（N=52）的皮质醇反应模式。在家庭访问开始时（T1）、母亲-儿童互动后 22 分钟（T2）和潜在的挫折任务后 22 分钟（T3），收集了儿童的唾液样本。重复测量分析表明，与未暴露组的女孩相比，暴露组的女孩在三个阶段的皮质醇水平均较高。在男孩中未发现差异。母亲孕期的情绪抱怨可能对男孩和女孩的 HPA 轴功能产生不同的影响。
