School of Nursing, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States of America.
School of Population and Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
PLoS One. 2014 Jan 21;9(1):e86283. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0086283. eCollection 2014.
The purpose of the study was to determine whether mothers' adversities experienced during early pregnancy are associated with offspring's autonomic nervous system (ANS) reactivity trajectories from 6 months to 5 years of age. This cohort study of primarily Latino families included maternal interviews at 13-14 weeks gestation about their experience of a range of adversities: father's absence, general social support, poverty level, and household density. ANS measures of heart rate, respiratory sinus arrhythmia (parasympathetic nervous system) and preejection period (sympathetic nervous system) were collected during resting and challenging conditions on children at 6 months and 1, 3.5 and 5 years of age. Reactivity measures were calculated as the mean of the responses to challenging conditions minus a resting condition. Fixed effects models were conducted for the 212 children with two or more timepoints of ANS measures. Interactions between maternal prenatal adversity levels and child age at time of ANS protocol were included in the models, allowing the calculation of separate trajectories or slopes for each level of adversity. Results showed no significant relations between mothers' prenatal socioeconomic or social support adversity and offspring's parasympathetic nervous system trajectories, but there was a statistically significant relationship between social support adversity and offspring's heart rate trajectories (p<.05) and a borderline significant relationship between socioeconomic adversity and offspring's sympathetic nervous system trajectories (p = .05). Children whose mothers experienced one, not two, social support adversity had the smallest increases in heart rate reactivity compared to children whose mothers experienced no adversity. The children whose mothers experienced no social support and no socioeconomic adversity had the largest increases in heart rate and preejection period respectively from 6 months to 5 years showing the most plasticity. Mothers' prenatal adverse experiences may program their children's physiologic trajectory to dampen their heart rate or sympathetic responsivity to challenging conditions.
本研究旨在探讨母亲在孕早期经历的逆境是否与后代自主神经系统（ANS）从 6 个月到 5 岁的反应轨迹有关。这是一项针对主要为拉丁裔家庭的队列研究，在妊娠 13-14 周时对母亲进行了访谈，了解她们在父亲缺席、一般社会支持、贫困水平和家庭密度等方面的逆境经历。在 6 个月、1 岁、3.5 岁和 5 岁时，通过儿童在静息和挑战状态下的心率、呼吸窦性心律失常（副交感神经系统）和射血前期（交感神经系统）等 ANS 测量收集了 ANS 测量数据。反应性测量值是通过减去静息状态下的挑战条件下的平均响应来计算的。对于有两个或更多 ANS 测量时间点的 212 名儿童，进行了固定效应模型分析。模型中包括了母亲产前逆境水平与儿童接受 ANS 方案时年龄的交互作用，允许为每个逆境水平计算单独的轨迹或斜率。结果显示，母亲产前社会经济或社会支持逆境与后代副交感神经系统轨迹之间没有显著关系，但社会支持逆境与后代心率轨迹之间存在统计学上的显著关系（p<.05），社会经济逆境与后代交感神经系统轨迹之间存在边缘显著关系（p=0.05）。与母亲经历过无逆境的儿童相比，经历过一种而不是两种社会支持逆境的儿童的心率反应性增加最小。与母亲经历过无社会支持和无社会经济逆境的儿童相比，心率和射血前期的增加最大，表现出最大的可塑性。母亲产前的不良经历可能会影响其后代的生理轨迹，使他们的心率或对挑战条件的交感反应性降低。
