ArticleStress (Amsterdam, Netherlands)2016
Lifetime exposure to traumatic and other stressful life events and hair cortisol in a multi-racial/ethnic sample of pregnant women.
Article in Stress (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 50 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
50 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 85 citations in OpenAlex.
- A systematic review of associations between hormone levels in hair and peripartum depression.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2025Pooled it
- A systematic review of hair cortisol during pregnancy: Reference ranges and methodological considerations.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2020Pooled it
- Bridges to treatment satisfaction: the roles of trauma, social support, race and ethnicity among perinatal women receiving behavioural activation therapy.BMC medicine · 2025Trial
- Prenatal stress, intimate partner violence and maternal cortisol trajectories: insights from a prospective birth cohort from São Paulo, Brazil.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Pre-trauma hair cortisol moderates adverse childhood experience and hypothalamic volume effects on stress symptoms after adult trauma.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Association of placental mitochondrial DNA mutations on infant negative affectivity: modifying effects of maternal lifetime stress and infant sex.Biology of sex differences · 2025Article
- Vulnerability and Complexity: Wartime Experiences of Arab Women During the Perinatal Period.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- Lifetime Stressor Severity and Diurnal Cortisol in Older African American Adults: A Comparison of Three Theoretical Models.Developmental psychobiology · 2025Article
- HPA axis dysregulation and postpartum depression and anxiety symptoms in breastfeeding vs bottle-feeding parents.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2025Article
- Prenatal stress and hair cortisol in a sample of Latina women.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2024Article
- Hair hormone data from Syrian refugee children: Perspectives from a two-year longitudinal study.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2024Review
- Risk perception and use of personal care products by race and ethnicity among a diverse population.UCL open. Environment · 2024Article
- Prenatal exposure to social adversity and infant cortisol in the first year of life.Stress (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2024Article
- Exposure to the Indian Ocean Tsunami shapes the HPA-axis resulting in HPA "burnout" 14 years later.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Associations between neighborhood stress and maternal sex steroid hormones in pregnancy.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2023Article
- Stress before conception and during pregnancy and maternal cortisol during pregnancy: A scoping review.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2023Article
- Association between trauma exposure and glucocorticosteroid concentration in hair during pregnancy.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2023Article
- Maternal stress and hair cortisol among pregnant women following hurricane Florence.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2023Article
- Recruitment and Feasibility of Hair Cortisol Collection in a Sample of Ethnically and Sexually Diverse, Low-Income Adults: A Qualitative Community-Partnered Participatory Research Study.Journal of health care for the poor and underserved · 2023Article
- Stress-Related Mental Health Disorders and Inflammation in Pregnancy: The Current Landscape and the Need for Further Investigation.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
We examined whether lifetime exposure to stressful and traumatic events alters hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis functioning, as indexed by hair cortisol, regardless of associated psychopathology, among pregnant women of different racial/ethnic backgrounds. 180 women provided hair samples for measurement of integrated cortisol levels throughout pregnancy and information regarding their lifetime exposure to stressful and traumatic life events. Results indicate that increased lifetime exposure to traumatic events was associated with significantly greater hair cortisol over the course of pregnancy. Similarly, greater lifetime exposure to stressful and traumatic events weighted by reported negative impact (over the previous 12 months) was associated with significantly greater hair cortisol during pregnancy. All analyses controlled for maternal age, education, body mass index (BMI), use of inhaled corticosteroids, race/ethnicity, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depressive symptoms. Following stratification by race/ethnicity, associations between stressful and traumatic life events and hair cortisol were found among Black women only. This is the first study to consider associations between lifetime stress exposures and hair cortisol in a sociodemographically diverse sample of pregnant women. Increased exposure to stressful and traumatic events, independent of PTSD and depressive symptoms, was associated with higher cortisol production, particularly in Black women. Future research should investigate the influence of such increased cortisol exposure on developmental outcomes among offspring.
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Registered trials
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.