Can Prenatal Stress Influence Child Outcomes?

Researchers are postulating a link between maternal biological stress at the time of conception and the subsequent development of the child’s stress physiology.

A study published in the Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease measured the cortisol levels of 22 women, starting from before they were pregnant through their eighth week of pregnancy. They compared those levels to those of their children 12 years later. Scientists discovered that maternal cortisol, collected in the early post-conception period, was associated with children’s cortisol collected at age 10–11 during known stressful events—at the start of the school year and during a public-speaking challenge. Results were varied along gender lines.

Sons of mothers who had higher cortisol in gestational week two had higher cortisol reactions to the public-speaking challenge. This association did not hold true with daughters.

Daughters of mothers with higher cortisol in gestational week five had higher “basal” cortisol before the start of a new school term, but this was not the case with sons.

Both sons and daughters had higher cortisol responses to the start of a new school term and in response to the public-speaking challenge if their mothers had higher cortisol during gestational week five.

Genetic and epigenetic factors, as well as cultural and environmental factors, are thought to mediate these associations. Researchers plan to continue investigating the link between maternal and child stress from conception onward, with the goal of developing programs and interventions that prepare children to live healthy and fulfilling lives.

The functional medicine model concentrates on stress management and treatments that focus on the whole person—mind, body, spirit, and emotion.

To learn what clinicians are doing to address not only stress, but also pain and addiction, refer to the Institute for Functional Medicine’s 2019 Annual International Conference on Stress, Pain, and Addiction.