SynthesisPsychoneuroendocrinology2020
A systematic review of hair cortisol during pregnancy: Reference ranges and methodological considerations.
Synthesis in Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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
30 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- A systematic review of associations between hormone levels in hair and peripartum depression.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2025Pooled it
- Hair Cortisol Research in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder - 10 Years of Insights and Open Questions. A Systematic Review.Current neuropharmacology · 2024Pooled it
- Cross-sectional relation of long-term glucocorticoids in hair with anthropometric measurements and their possible determinants: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2022Pooled it
- Associations Between Different Cortisol Measures and Adiposity in Children: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Frontiers in nutrition · 2022Pooled it
- Stress is not so bad-cortisol level and psychological functioning after 8-week HIIT program during pregnancy: a randomized controlled trial.Frontiers in public health · 2023Trial
- Time-dependent association between prenatal hair glucocorticoid levels and child behavior problems.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2026Article
- Satellite and ground-level residential greenness and hair steroid hormones during pregnancy.Environmental epidemiology (Philadelphia, Pa.) · 2026Article
- Exposure to Endocrine Disruptors and Stress Hormones Across Pregnancy Trimesters: Links with Maternal Telomere Length.Journal of xenobiotics · 2026Article
- Measurement of Hair Cortisol Throughout Gestation.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Article
- Simultaneous Analysis of Biomarkers in Human Hair for Evaluating Chronic Tobacco Smoke Exposure and Stress/Relaxation Using Online In-Tube Solid-Phase Microextraction Coupled with Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Biomarkers in maternal mental health research in Indonesia: toward a pragmatic hybrid framework in low-resource settings.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Does including multiple hormones and family context together clarify hormone-behavior associations? A systematic review.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2025Review
- Associations among prenatal stress, socioeconomic status, and infant epigenetic aging.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2025Article
- Associations Between Prenatal Maternal Stress and Infant Resting Brain Activity: A Preregistered Investigation.Developmental psychobiology · 2025Article
- Using Machine Learning to Identify Predictors of Maternal and Infant Hair Cortisol Concentration Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic.Stress and health : journal of the International Society for the Investigation of Stress · 2025Article
- Prenatal Exposure to Synthetic Phenols Assessed in Multiple Urine Samples and Dysregulation of Steroid Hormone Homeostasis in Two European Cohorts.Environmental health perspectives · 2025Article
- Prepartal Stress, Prepartal and Postpartal Hair Glucocorticoid Concentrations, and Symptoms of Postpartum Depression 3 Days and 12 Weeks After Delivery.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2025Article
- The effect of cortisol in early pregnancy on postpartum depressive symptoms.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Chronic stress and hair cortisol concentration in mothers: A two-study investigation.Stress and health : journal of the International Society for the Investigation of Stress · 2024Article
- The impact of maternal vulnerability on stress biomarkers and first-trimester growth: the Rotterdam Periconceptional Cohort (Predict Study).Human reproduction (Oxford, England) · 2024Article
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.
Funding
Abstract
The present study systematically reviewed 56 articles that assessed hair cortisol concentrations during pregnancy collected from PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science on 8/9/19 and updated on 6/29/20. Our goals were to establish reference ranges by trimester based on published studies. The majority of any given sample (e.g., 70 %, the range of -1SD to +1SD) is expected to fall between 0 and 34.15 pg/mg in trimester 1 and 2, and between 8.59 and 44 pg/mg in trimester 3, with very wide ranges (e.g., values of >250 pg/mg) and substantially higher values (e.g., averages of 200's-300's reaching as high as 768 pg/mg) coming out of one specific lab. Delineating a reference range for hair cortisol concentrations across pregnancy is challenging because of known factors like differences in values returned by different laboratories and assay types. We observed inconsistency in descriptions of the data and data preparation steps post-assay. Key findings include that only half of the studies examining all three trimesters showed a constant increase in mean levels (most retrospectively assessed via segmenting), with considerable variability in patterns of change. None of the studies reported individual patterns of change. Examining within-person changes are an important next step for the field. We conclude that researchers should more clearly report decisions around outliers, units, and specifics of data transformations in the future in order to improve our ability to compare findings across studies, to understand differences in HCC values reported, and potentially to understand differences in reported associations of HCC with other phenotypes in the literature.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.