ArticleDevelopment and psychopathology2023
Increases in maternal depressive symptoms during pregnancy and infant cortisol reactivity: Mediation by placental corticotropin-releasing hormone.
Article in Development and psychopathology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 18 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prenatal Origins of Stress Regulation: Maternal Psychological Distress and Inflammation During Pregnancy Prospectively Predict Infant Behavioral Reactivity and Regulation.Developmental psychobiology · 2026Article
- Developmental origins of immune function: Maternal prenatal mood is associated with infant immune cell gene expression.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2026Article
- The Impact of Lifestyle on Reproductive Health: Microbial Complexity, Hormonal Dysfunction, and Pregnancy Outcomes.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Experiences of discrimination during pregnancy predict altered neonatal hair cortisol at birth.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2025Article
- Prospective associations of prenatal stress with child behavior: Moderation by the early childhood caregiving environment.Development and psychopathology · 2025Article
- Conventional and new immunotherapies for immune system dysregulation in postpartum mood disorders: comparisons to immune system dysregulations in bipolar disorder, major depression, and postpartum autoimmune thyroid disease.Expert review of clinical immunology · 2025Review
- Association between maternal anxiety/depression in pregnancy and the development of offspring eczema/AD: a meta-analysis based on cohort studies.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2025Article
- Higher prenatal anxiety predicts lower neonatal hair cortisol.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2024Article
- Parental Preconception Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms and Maternal Prenatal Inflammation Prospectively Predict Shorter Telomere Length in Children.Psychosomatic medicine · 2024Article
- Placental corticotrophin-releasing hormone trajectories in pregnancy: Associations with postpartum depressive symptoms.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2024Article
- Sex-specific associations between placental corticotropin releasing hormone and problem behaviors in childhood.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2024Article
- Maternal Early Life Adversity and Infant Stress Regulation: Intergenerational Associations and Mediation by Maternal Prenatal Mental Health.Research on child and adolescent psychopathology · 2023Article
- Article
- Stress before conception and during pregnancy and maternal cortisol during pregnancy: A scoping review.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2023Article
- Development and function of the fetal adrenal.Reviews in endocrine & metabolic disorders · 2023Review
- A framework for testing pathways from prenatal stress-responsive hormones to cardiovascular disease risk.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundMaternal depressive symptoms in pregnancy may affect offspring health through prenatal programming of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. The biological mechanisms that explain the associations between maternal prenatal depressive symptoms and offspring HPA axis regulation are not yet clear. This pre-registered investigation examines whether patterns of maternal depressive symptoms in pregnancy are associated with infant cortisol reactivity and whether this association is mediated by changes in placental corticotropin-releasing hormone (pCRH).
methodA sample of 174 pregnant women completed assessments in early, mid, and late pregnancy that included standardized measures of depressive symptoms and blood samples for pCRH. Infant cortisol reactivity was assessed at 1 and 6 months of age.
resultsGreater increases in maternal depressive symptoms in pregnancy were associated with higher cortisol infant cortisol reactivity at 1 and 6 months. Greater increases in maternal depressive symptoms in pregnancy were associated with greater increases in pCRH from early to late pregnancy which in turn were associated with higher infant cortisol reactivity.
conclusionsIncreases in maternal depressive symptoms and pCRH over pregnancy may contribute to higher infant cortisol reactivity. These findings help to elucidate the prenatal biopsychosocial processes contributing to offspring HPA axis regulation early in development.
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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.