ArticleArchives of gynecology and obstetrics2020
Fetal heart rate variability responsiveness to maternal stress, non-invasively detected from maternal transabdominal ECG.
Article in Archives of gynecology and obstetrics, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT03389178 (Fetal Early Non-invasive Biomarkers of Chronic Maternal Stress During Pregnancy Resulting in Alterations of Infant Cognitive Development), which is not on this map. Cited by 24 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.
Fetal Early Non-invasive Biomarkers of Chronic Maternal Stress During Pregnancy Resulting in Alterations of Infant Cognitive Development
Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 46 citations in OpenAlex.
- A Review on the Vagus Nerve and Autonomic Nervous System During Fetal Development: Searching for Critical Windows.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2021Pooled it
- A systematic review of hair cortisol during pregnancy: Reference ranges and methodological considerations.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2020Pooled it
- Detection of maternal and fetal stress from the electrocardiogram with self-supervised representation learning.Scientific reports · 2021Trial
- Article
- Heart Rate Variability Patterns Reflect Yoga Intervention in Chronically Stressed Pregnant Women: A Quasi-Randomized Controlled Trial.Bioengineering (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Maternal prenatal stress induces sex-dependent changes in tRNA fragment families and cholinergic pathways in newborns.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Article
- Impact of Depressive Symptoms during the Second Trimester of Pregnancy on Maternal and Fetal Heart Rate Variability.Clinical psychopharmacology and neuroscience : the official scientific journal of the Korean College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2025Article
- A method for dyadic cardiac rhythmicity analysis: Preliminary evidence on bilateral interactions in fetal-maternal cardiac dynamics.Experimental physiology · 2025Article
- Emotional temperaments in advanced pregnant goats and its relationship with the feto-maternal blood flow and placentome echotexture.Veterinary research communications · 2024Article
- Fetal ECG-based analysis reveals the impact of fetal movements and maternal respiration on maternal-fetal heart rate synchronization.PloS one · 2024Article
- Maternal cardiorespiratory coupling: differences between pregnant and nonpregnant women are further amplified by sleep-stage stratification.Journal of applied physiology (Bethesda, Md. : 1985) · 2023Article
- Wearable technology for health monitoring during pregnancy: an observational cross-sectional survey study.Archives of gynecology and obstetrics · 2023Observational
- Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Neuro-Immunometabolic Hypothesis of the Developmental Origins.Biology · 2023Article
- Evidence and clinical relevance of maternal-fetal cardiac coupling: A scoping review.PloS one · 2023Article
- Maternal distress, DNA methylation, and fetal programing of stress physiology in Brazilian mother-infant pairs.Developmental psychobiology · 2023Article
- The osteopath-parent-child triad in osteopathic care in the first 2 years of life: a qualitative study.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Maternal-fetal stress and DNA methylation signatures in neonatal saliva: an epigenome-wide association study.Clinical epigenetics · 2022Article
- Prenatal stress perturbs fetal iron homeostasis in a sex specific manner.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Acute Prenatal Hypoxia in Rats Affects Physiology and Brain Metabolism in the Offspring, Dependent on Sex and Gestational Age.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
- Comprehensive HRV estimation pipeline in Python using Neurokit2: Application to sleep physiology.MethodsX · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
13 authors at 5 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposePrenatal stress (PS) during pregnancy affects in utero- and postnatal child brain-development. Key systems affected are the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Maternal- and fetal ANS activity can be gauged non-invasively from transabdominal electrocardiogram (taECG). We propose a novel approach to assess couplings between maternal (mHR) and fetal heart rate (fHR) as a new biomarker for PS based on bivariate phase-rectified signal averaging (BPRSA). We hypothesized that PS exerts lasting impact on fHR.
methodsProspective case-control study matched for maternal age, parity, and gestational age during the third trimester using the Cohen Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) questionnaire with PSS-10 over or equal 19 classified as stress group (SG). Women with PSS-10 < 19 served as control group (CG). Fetal electrocardiograms were recorded by a taECG. Coupling between mHR and fHR was analyzed by BPRSA resulting in fetal stress index (FSI). Maternal hair cortisol, a memory of chronic stress exposure for 2-3 months, was measured at birth.
results538/1500 pregnant women returned the questionnaire, 55/538 (10.2%) mother-child pairs formed SG and were matched with 55/449 (12.2%) consecutive patients as CG. Maternal hair cortisol was 86.6 (48.0-169.2) versus 53.0 (34.4-105.9) pg/mg (p = 0.029). At 36 + 5 weeks, FSI was significantly higher in fetuses of stressed mothers when compared to controls [0.43 (0.18-0.85) versus 0.00 (- 0.49-0.18), p < 0.001].
conclusionPrenatal maternal stress affects the coupling between maternal and fetal heart rate detectable non-invasively a month prior to birth. Lasting effects on neurodevelopment of affected offspring should be studied.
trial registrationClinical trial registration: NCT03389178.
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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.