McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2013 Sep;38(9):1630-8. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2013.01.008. Epub 2013 Feb 22.
Experimental animal work shows that prenatal stress has a persisting effect on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis of offspring. The implications of these findings for human health and development are not yet clear.
The data are based on the ALSPAC cohort, a prospective longitudinal study of a community sample that has followed mothers and children from pregnancy. When the children were aged 15 years, diurnal cortisol samples were collected at wake-up, 30 min post-awakening and at afternoon and evening times on up to three consecutive days on n=889 adolescents. Diurnal cortisol was predicted from prenatal anxiety and depression, obstetric, life-style, socio-demographic, and postnatal covariates.
Multilevel model analysis indicated that maternal prenatal anxiety was associated with a modest alteration of diurnal cortisol, indexed by a reduced cortisol awakening response and flatter diurnal slope. The effects were independent of psychosocial and obstetric covariates and measures of maternal postnatal anxiety; effects were similar for prenatal maternal depression. There was no association between adolescent cortisol and paternal prenatal anxiety.
There are small but persisting associations between maternal prenatal mood and diurnal cortisol in the child that persist into adolescence and may constitute a programming effect.
实验动物研究表明，产前应激对后代的下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺（HPA）轴具有持久影响。这些发现对人类健康和发育的影响尚不清楚。
该数据基于 ALSPAC 队列，这是一项针对社区样本的前瞻性纵向研究，对孕妇及其子女进行了跟踪调查。当孩子们 15 岁时，对 889 名青少年进行了连续三天的三次日间皮质醇样本采集，时间分别为醒来时、醒来后 30 分钟和下午及晚上。通过产前焦虑和抑郁、产科、生活方式、社会人口统计学和产后协变量来预测日间皮质醇。
多层次模型分析表明，母亲产前焦虑与日间皮质醇的适度改变有关，表现为皮质醇觉醒反应降低和日间斜率变平。这些影响独立于心理社会和产科协变量以及母亲产后焦虑的测量值；产前母亲抑郁的影响也相似。青少年皮质醇与父亲产前焦虑之间没有关联。
母亲产前情绪与儿童日间皮质醇之间存在小但持久的关联，这些关联一直持续到青春期，并可能构成一种编程效应。
