ArticlePloS one2014
Holsteins favor heifers, not bulls: biased milk production programmed during pregnancy as a function of fetal sex.
Article in PloS one, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 47 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
47 citing papers in PubMed, 112 citations in OpenAlex.
- Weaning Age in Yunnan Snub-Nosed Monkeys: Effects of Interbirth Interval, Seasonality and Sex-Biased Maternal Investment.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Twinning in Italian Holstein Cows: A Retrospective Study on Risk Factors and Its Associations with Milk Production, Fertility, and Survival.Veterinary sciences · 2025Article
- Consecutive Lactation, Infant Birth Weight and Sex Do Not Associate with Milk Production and Infant Milk Intake in Breastfeeding Women.Nutrients · 2025Article
- Investigation of Relationships between Intakes of Human Milk Total Lipids and Metabolic Hormones and Infant Sex and Body Composition.Nutrients · 2024Article
- Comprehensive analysis of differences in the physiochemical composition of foremilk and hindmilk of grazing indigenous and crossbred dairy goats; implications for growth, milk production and industry.Tropical animal health and production · 2024Article
- Maternal protein supplementation during mid-gestation improves offspring performance and metabolism in beef cows.Journal of animal science · 2024Article
- Livestock species as emerging models for genomic imprinting.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2024Review
- The Influence of Selected Factors on the Nutritional Value of the Milk of Cold-Blooded Mares: The Example of the Sokólski Breed.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2023Article
- Lab partners: oocytes, embryos and company. A personal view on aspects of oocyte maturation and the development of monozygotic twins.Animal reproduction · 2023Article
- Protein Supplementation during Mid-Gestation Alters the Amino Acid Patterns, Hepatic Metabolism, and Maternal Skeletal Muscle Turnover of Pregnant Zebu Beef Cows.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022Article
- Effects of maternal age and offspring sex on milk yield, composition and calf growth of red deer (Cervus elaphus).Scientific reports · 2022Article
- The Effects of Prenatal Diet on Calf Performance and Perspectives for Fetal Programming Studies: A Meta-Analytical Investigation.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022Article
- Sex differences in preterm nutrition and growth: the evidence from human milk associated studies.Journal of perinatology : official journal of the California Perinatal Association · 2022Review
- Factors contributing to milk yield variation among cows in a cow-calf contact system in early lactation.JDS communications · 2022Article
- Infant sex differences in human milk intake and composition from 1- to 3-month post-delivery in a healthy United States cohort.Annals of human biology · 2021Article
- Bias of Calf Sex on Milk Yield and Fat Yield in Holstein Crossbreed Cows.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2021Article
- Maternal Nutrition and Developmental Programming of Male Progeny.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2021Review
- Firstborn sex defines early childhood growth of subsequent siblings.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Benefits and Risks of Preventing Twin Pregnancies.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2021Review
- Postpartum depression and mother-offspring conflict over maternal investment.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Mammalian females pay high energetic costs for reproduction, the greatest of which is imposed by lactation. The synthesis of milk requires, in part, the mobilization of bodily reserves to nourish developing young. Numerous hypotheses have been advanced to predict how mothers will differentially invest in sons and daughters, however few studies have addressed sex-biased milk synthesis. Here we leverage the dairy cow model to investigate such phenomena. Using 2.39 million lactation records from 1.49 million dairy cows, we demonstrate that the sex of the fetus influences the capacity of the mammary gland to synthesize milk during lactation. Cows favor daughters, producing significantly more milk for daughters than for sons across lactation. Using a sub-sample of this dataset (N = 113,750 subjects) we further demonstrate that the effects of fetal sex interact dynamically across parities, whereby the sex of the fetus being gestated can enhance or diminish the production of milk during an established lactation. Moreover the sex of the fetus gestated on the first parity has persistent consequences for milk synthesis on the subsequent parity. Specifically, gestation of a daughter on the first parity increases milk production by ∼ 445 kg over the first two lactations. Our results identify a dramatic and sustained programming of mammary function by offspring in utero. Nutritional and endocrine conditions in utero are known to have pronounced and long-term effects on progeny, but the ways in which the progeny has sustained physiological effects on the dam have received little attention to date.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.