Trial reportDevelopment and psychopathology2018
An experimental test of the fetal programming hypothesis: Can we reduce child ontogenetic vulnerability to psychopathology by decreasing maternal depression?
Trial report in Development and psychopathology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 62 papers, 4 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
62 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 87 citations in OpenAlex.
- Neonatal Hair Cortisol and Birth Outcomes: An Empirical Study and Meta-Analysis.Psychosomatic medicine · 2024Pooled it
- Prenatal stress and externalizing behaviors in childhood and adolescence: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Psychological bulletin · 2024Pooled it
- Maternal Mental Health and Offspring Brain Development: An Umbrella Review of Prenatal Interventions.Biological psychiatry · 2023Pooled it
- Perinatal promotive and protective factors for women with histories of childhood abuse and neglect.Child abuse & neglect · 2019Pooled it
- Moving the dial on prenatal stress mechanisms of neurodevelopmental vulnerability to mental health problems: A personalized prevention proof of concept.Developmental psychobiology · 2021Trial
- Maternal postnatal depression and sensitive parenting: Considering developmental timing with a causally informative approach.Developmental psychology · 2026Article
- Positive childhood experiences relate to prenatal mental health symptoms and diagnoses independent of childhood maltreatment.Journal of mood and anxiety disorders · 2026Article
- Fetal Cortisol Exposure and Offspring Socioemotional Development.Developmental psychobiology · 2026Article
- Developmental Cascades From Prenatal Tobacco, Tobacco-cannabis Co-exposure to Early school-age externalizing Problems.Research on child and adolescent psychopathology · 2026Article
- Joint and Independent Associations of Gestational Diabetes and Depression With Childhood Obesity.JAMA network open · 2026Article
- Discrepancies between self- and partner-reported maternal depressive symptoms during pregnancy: roles of maternal attachment and partner depressive symptoms.Attachment & human development · 2026Article
- Evaluating a hierarchical structural model of psychopathology symptoms across pregnancy and the postpartum period.Journal of psychopathology and clinical science · 2026Article
- Neonatal striatal volume is associated with infant anhedonia.Journal of affective disorders · 2026Article
- Investigating the dynamic relations between maternal sleep and depression across pregnancy.Journal of mood and anxiety disorders · 2025Article
- Change in psychosocial target processes during prenatal depression intervention: A randomized clinical trial.Journal of mood and anxiety disorders · 2025Article
- Maternal perinatal depression and infant self-regulation: A meta-analytic review.Development and psychopathology · 2025Review
- Sensitive periods and other timing hypotheses in developmental psychopathology: A tutorial.Development and psychopathology · 2025Article
- Experiences of discrimination during pregnancy predict altered neonatal hair cortisol at birth.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2025Article
- Virtual versus in-person ROSE program (La Luz) as universal prevention for perinatal depression: Protocol for a randomized controlled trial in a safety net hospital.Contemporary clinical trials · 2025Article
- Prospective associations of prenatal stress with child behavior: Moderation by the early childhood caregiving environment.Development and psychopathology · 2025Article
2 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Maternal depression is one of the most common prenatal complications, and prenatal maternal depression predicts many child psychopathologies. Here, we apply the fetal programming hypothesis as an organizational framework to address the possibility that fetal exposure to maternal depressive symptoms during pregnancy affects fetal development of vulnerabilities and risk mechanisms, which enhance risk for subsequent psychopathology. We consider four candidate pathways through which maternal prenatal depression may affect the propensity of offspring to develop later psychopathology across the life span: brain development, physiological stress regulation (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis), negative emotionality, and cognitive (effortful) control. The majority of past research has been correlational, so potential causal conclusions have been limited. We describe an ongoing experimental test of the fetal programming influence of prenatal maternal depressive symptoms using a randomized controlled trial design. In this randomized controlled trial, interpersonal psychotherapy is compared to enhanced usual care among distressed pregnant women to evaluate whether reducing prenatal maternal depressive symptoms has a salutary impact on child ontogenetic vulnerabilities and thereby reduces offspring's risk for emergence of later psychopathology.
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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.