ArticleJournal of developmental origins of health and disease2015
Fetal sex differences in human chorionic gonadotropin fluctuate by maternal race, age, weight and by gestational age.
Article in Journal of developmental origins of health and disease, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
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Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 33 citations in OpenAlex.
- Associations of maternal urinary perchlorate, thiocyanate, and nitrate with maternal thyroid function during pregnancy: Modification by iodine status in the MARBLES study.Environmental research · 2026Article
- The Placental Steroid Hypothesis of Human Brain Evolution.Evolutionary anthropology · 2025Review
- Higher prevalence of gestational diabetes in euthyroid women with thyroid autoimmunity who were expecting a female fetus.European thyroid journal · 2025Article
- Mediation Analysis using Semi-parametric Shape-Restricted Regression with Applications.Sankhya. Series B. [Methodological.] · 2024Article
- Associations of Serum Perfluoroalkyl Substances and Placental Human Chorionic Gonadotropin in Early Pregnancy, Measured in the UPSIDE Study in Rochester, New York.Environmental health perspectives · 2024Article
- Thyroid FT4-to-TSH ratio in the first trimester is associated with gestational diabetes mellitus in women carrying male fetus: a prospective bi-center cohort study.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2024Article
- Fetal sexual dimorphism of maternal thyroid function parameters during pregnancy, a single center retrospective real-world study.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2024Article
- Article
- Extreme βHCG levels in first trimester screening are risk factors for adverse maternal and fetal outcomes.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Application of 4-way decomposition to the analysis of placental-fetal biomarkers as intermediary variables between maternal body mass index and birthweight.Frontiers in reproductive health · 2022Article
- Does foetal gender influence maternal thyroid parameters in pregnancy?European thyroid journal · 2022Article
- Placental Endocrine Activity: Adaptation and Disruption of Maternal Glucose Metabolism in Pregnancy and the Influence of Fetal Sex.International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Review
- Maternal steroid levels and the autistic traits of the mother and infant.Molecular autism · 2021Article
- Sex Differences Are Here to Stay: Relevance to Prenatal Care.Journal of clinical medicine · 2021Review
- Second-Trimester Placental and Thyroid Hormones Are Associated With Cognitive Development From Ages 1 to 3 Years.Journal of the Endocrine Society · 2021Article
- Genome-wide microRNA expression analysis in human placenta reveals sex-specific patterns: an ENVIREpigenetics · 2021Article
- A toolkit for the application of placental-fetal molecular biomarkers in epidemiologic studies of the fetal origins of chronic disease.Current epidemiology reports · 2021Article
- Examining Sex Differences in the Human Placental Transcriptome During the First Fetal Androgen Peak.Reproductive sciences (Thousand Oaks, Calif.) · 2021Article
- Gestational Hormone Concentrations Are Associated With Timing of Delivery in a Fetal Sex-Dependent Manner.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2021Article
- Comparison of uterine fibroids' growth pattern during pregnancy according to fetal sex: an observational study.Biology of sex differences · 2019Observational
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Circulating levels of the placental glycoprotein hormone human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) are higher in women carrying female v. male fetuses; yet, the significance of this difference with respect to maternal factors, environmental exposures and neonatal outcomes is unknown. As a first step in evaluating the biologic and clinical significance of sex differences in hCG, we conducted a population-level analysis to assess its stability across subgroups. Subjects were women carrying singleton pregnancies who participated in prenatal and newborn screening programs in CA from 2009 to 2012 (1.1 million serum samples). hCG was measured in the first and second trimesters and fetal sex was determined from the neonatal record. Multivariate linear models were used to estimate hCG means in women carrying female and male fetuses. We report fluctuations in the ratios of female to male hCG by maternal factors and by gestational age. hCG was higher in the case of a female fetus by 11 and 8% in the first and second trimesters, respectively (P<0.0001). There were small (1-5%) fluctuations in the sex difference by maternal race, weight and age. The female-to-male ratio in hCG decreased from 17 to 2% in the first trimester, and then increased from 2 to 19% in the second trimester (P<0.0001). We demonstrate within a well enumerated, diverse US population that the sex difference in hCG overall is stable. Small fluctuations within population subgroups may be relevant to environmental and physiologic effects on the placenta and can be probed further using these types of data.
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