School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW, Australia; Child and Adolescent Mental Health Southern Denmark, Mental Health Services in the Region of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Southern Denmark, Mental Health Services in the Region of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.
Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2024 Oct;168:107141. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2024.107141. Epub 2024 Jul 17.
Prenatal exposure to synthetic glucocorticoids may increase the risk of emotional symptoms in childhood partly by reducing fetal growth. We explored if physiological levels of prenatal maternal cortisol were associated with internalising problems in boys and girls and if this was mediated by birth weight.
Mother-child dyads from the prospective Odense Child Cohort (n=1162) were included if maternal serum cortisol (3rd trimester), offspring birth weight, and Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL) assessments in preschool age were available. Crude and adjusted associations between cortisol and internalising problems were determined in linear mixed models stratified by offspring sex. Covariates included parental psychiatric history, parity, maternal age, education, smoking during pregnancy, and gestational age at birth. In the presence of significant associations, we evaluated the potential mediating role of birth weight.
The study sample included 601 boys and 561 girls and internalising problems were assessed at mean ages 2.3 (±0.4) and 5 (±0.5) years. In the crude analysis, cortisol was positively associated with internalising problems in boys (p-value 0.017) and in girls (p-value < 0.0001). In the adjusted analyses, there was no statistically significant association between cortisol and offspring internalising problems in boys or girls (all p-values > 0.15). There was no mediation by birth weight.
Maternal serum cortisol was positively associated with offspring internalising problems in boys and girls, but there was no association following adjustment for potential confounders and no mediation through birth weight. Maternal third-trimester cortisol levels do not predict preschool offspring internalising problems in our study.
产前暴露于合成糖皮质激素可能会通过降低胎儿生长来增加儿童期情绪症状的风险。我们探讨了母体产前皮质醇的生理水平是否与男孩和女孩的内化问题有关，以及这种情况是否通过出生体重来介导。
如果有母亲血清皮质醇（第 3 孕期）、后代出生体重和幼儿期儿童行为检查表（CBCL）评估，则纳入前瞻性奥登塞儿童队列（n=1162）中的母婴对子。在按后代性别分层的线性混合模型中，确定皮质醇与内化问题之间的粗关联和调整关联。协变量包括父母的精神病史、产次、母亲年龄、教育程度、怀孕期间吸烟和出生时的胎龄。在存在显著关联的情况下，我们评估了出生体重的潜在中介作用。
研究样本包括 601 名男孩和 561 名女孩，内化问题在平均年龄为 2.3（±0.4）和 5（±0.5）岁时进行评估。在粗分析中，皮质醇与男孩（p 值<0.0001）和女孩（p 值<0.0001）的内化问题呈正相关。在调整分析中，皮质醇与男孩或女孩的后代内化问题之间没有统计学上显著的关联（所有 p 值均>0.15）。出生体重没有中介作用。
母体血清皮质醇与男孩和女孩的后代内化问题呈正相关，但在调整了潜在混杂因素后，这种关联并不存在，也没有通过出生体重进行中介。在我们的研究中，母体第 3 孕期皮质醇水平不能预测幼儿期后代的内化问题。
