ArticleBiological psychiatry2022
Maternal Prenatal Anxiety and the Fetal Origins of Epigenetic Aging.
Article in Biological psychiatry, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 45 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
45 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 65 citations in OpenAlex.
- Impact of Maternal Lifetime Stress on Offspring Biological Aging: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Pooled it
- Prenatal stress and externalizing behaviors in childhood and adolescence: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Psychological bulletin · 2024Pooled it
- Using Epigenetic Clocks to Characterize Biological Aging in Studies of Children and Childhood Exposures: a Systematic Review.Prevention science : the official journal of the Society for Prevention Research · 2023Pooled it
- Primary tooth emergence in young children is associated with a stress biomarker.Journal of developmental origins of health and disease · 2026Article
- Epigenetic age and neurodevelopmental outcomes in children born preterm.Genetics in medicine open · 2026Article
- A polyepigenetic glucocorticoid exposure score and HPA axis-related DNA methylation are associated with gestational epigenetic aging.Epigenetics · 2025Article
- Child and adolescent internalizing and externalizing traits, and epigenetic summary scores: A scoping review.Biological psychology · 2025Article
- Associations among prenatal stress, socioeconomic status, and infant epigenetic aging.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2025Article
- Work-related stress and burnout: Is epigenetic aging the missing link?Clinical epigenetics · 2025Article
- Epigenomic signatures of accelerated epigenetic aging are associated with congenital heart disease in newborns.BMC medical genomics · 2025Article
- Review
- PedBE age and age acceleration in umbilical vein endothelial cells: an examination of infant birth outcomes.Journal of developmental origins of health and disease · 2025Article
- Epigenetic age across development in children and adolescents with ADHD.Psychiatry research · 2025Article
- Epigenetic signatures of intergenerational exposure to violence in three generations of Syrian refugees.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- The association between gestational selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) treatment and newborn thyroid screen: a large-scale cohort study.BMC pediatrics · 2025Observational
- Association of prenatal trajectories of depressive and anxiety symptoms with neurodevelopment of children aged 0-24 months: A prospective study.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- Prenatal maternal salivary hormones and timing of tooth eruption in early childhood: a prospective birth cohort study.Frontiers in oral health · 2025Article
- Maximizing insights from longitudinal epigenetic age data: simulations, applications, and practical guidance.Clinical epigenetics · 2024Article
- Racial and ethnic socioenvironmental inequity and neuroimaging in psychiatry: a brief review of the past and recommendations for the future.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2024Review
- Technical considerations for placental tissue processing and the subsequent impact on genome-wide DNA methylation analysis.Clinical epigenetics · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
16 authors at 8 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe fetal origins of mental health is a well-established framework that currently lacks a robust index of the biological embedding of prenatal adversity. The Pediatric-Buccal-Epigenetic (PedBE) clock is a novel epigenetic tool that associates with aspects of the prenatal environment, but additional validation in longitudinal datasets is required. Likewise, the relationship between prenatal maternal mental health and the PedBE clock has not been described.
methodsLongitudinal cohorts from the Netherlands (Basal Influences on Baby Development [BIBO] n = 165) and Singapore (Growing Up in Singapore Towards Healthy Outcomes [GUSTO] n = 340) provided data on prenatal maternal anxiety and longitudinal assessments of buccal cell-derived genome-wide DNA methylation assessed at 6 and 10 years of age in BIBO, and at 3, 9, and 48 months of age in GUSTO. Measures of epigenetic age acceleration were calculated using the PedBE clock and benchmarked against an established multi-tissue epigenetic predictor.
resultsPrenatal maternal anxiety predicted child PedBE epigenetic age acceleration in both cohorts, with effects largely restricted to males and not females. These results were independent of obstetric, socioeconomic, and genetic risk factors, with a larger effect size for prenatal anxiety than depression. PedBE age acceleration predicted increased externalizing symptoms in males from mid- to late childhood in the BIBO cohort only.
conclusionsThese findings point to the fetal origins of epigenetic age acceleration and reveal an increased sensitivity in males. Convergent evidence underscores the societal importance of providing timely and effective mental health support to pregnant individuals, which may have lasting consequences for both mother and child.
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