L3: peri & post natal stress in dev Flashcards
what is pre natal stress? (1)
stress happening for the mother during pregnancy
what are some examples of pre natal stress? (12)
we mostly focus on psychosocial factors, but can also be physical:
depressive symptoms, anxiety, work stress, unemployment, relationship issues, death of the spouse or another family member, lack of social support, nutritional deficiencies, infections and illnesses, and natural disasters etc.
what is fetal programming? (2)
theory that environmental cues experienced during fetal development play a role in determining health trajectories across the lifespan.
can be related to cytokines, cortisol, and other physiological changes
how can cortisol be activated?
enzyme 11 beta (influenced by physiological changes), 11beta-HSD1 enzyme can catalyze the interconversion of inactive cortisol to active cortisol
what are epigenetics?
influence of early life experience on activating certain genes, which means that events from the first trimester will have larger consequences than from the second and third trimester
what is the baker hypothesis (DoHaD) (1)
growth retardation, low birth weight, and premature birth have a causal relationship to the origins of hypertension, coronary heart disease, and non-insulin-dependent diabetes, in middle age.
what is the hunger winter hypothesis? (2)
Those who were starved in the hunger winter were followed in a long-term study. Starvation during the first trimester gave the most impact later in life, resulting in more diabetes, adverse lipids, obesity, stress sensitivity, CHD and cancer
what was the ABCD study? (3)
- large prospective community based cohort study, started in pregnancy
- investigates the association between lifestyle, medical, psychosocial and environmental conditions in early life and children’s health and development
- specific attention to ethnic & SE inequalities
how did the ABCD study come about? (4)
- children w low birth weight or born premateurley have higher mortality rates
- large ethnic & social inequalities in pregnancy outcomes in ams
- health & dev in later life is partly formed in very early stages of life
- but the causes for ethnic disparities in pregnancy outcomes are largely unknown
What was the method of the ABCD study? (6)
- prenatal screening (12th week)
- questionnaire pregnancy (14th week)
- blood collection
- postnatal screening (7th day)
- linkage w databases
- questionnaire infancy (3m)
What is seen as an important limitation of the ABCD study? (1)
Cortisol levels are seen to change throughout the day, so should have been measured multiple times but was only measured at the time of data collection
what were the results of the ABCD study? (3)
Even after adjusting for depressive symptoms, the effect sizes do not change-> depressive symptoms do not influence the relationship btw maternal cortisol and term birthweight.
On the population level the risk of low birthweight increased with cortisol but mixed results on the individual level
What did another study about working conditions and birthweight find? (2)
Adjusted for a lot of factors especially smoking as those with bad working conditions were more likely to smoke.
Results found that a combination of 32 working hours and high job strain significantly decreased the birthweight of their child, creating a negative impact as large as smoking (can decrease birthweight by 150g)
Whare are the consequences of decreased levels of folic acid? (3)
–
Can increase the risk of
- diabetes-associated congenital disabilities
- autism
- childhood leukemia
What was an important factor for preventive interventions? (1)
Knowing the language-> knowing Dutch increased folic acid intake, as those from other ethnicities do not know the language and less likely to go to hospitals for screening as there is less info on the healthcare system
