BACKGROUND Prenatal cocaine exposure is a marker of developmental risk. Social environmental risk factors may include maternal stress and maternal perceptions of difficult infant temperament. OBJECTIVES To examine factors that may predict or moderate maternal ratings of parenting stress and difficult temperament in cocaine-exposed (CE) infants. METHOD Neonatal behavior, infant temperament, ...

BACKGROUND Prenatal exposure to both stress and aeroallergens (dust mite) may modulate the fetal immune system. These exposures may interact to affect the newborn immune response. We examined associations between prenatal maternal stress and cord blood total IgE in 403 predominately low-income minority infants enrolled in the Asthma Coalition on Community, Environment, and Social Stress (ACCESS...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the effect of child temperament, maternal psychologic symptoms, maternal chronic pain, and parenting stress on children's somatic complaints. METHODS The study was embedded in the Generation R Study, a population-based cohort study. Child somatic complaints were assessed via mother-report in 5,171 children of 18 months of age. Questionnaires assessed maternal somatic ...

BACKGROUND Preclinical studies demonstrate that the neonatal environment can permanently alter an individual's responses to stress. To demonstrate a similar phenomenon in humans, we prospectively examined the relationships of maternal stress beginning in infancy and concurrent stress on preschoolers' hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal activity and later mental health symptoms. METHODS Salivary co...

Background: Preclinical studies demonstrate that the neonatal environment can permanently alter an individual’s responses to stress. To demonstrate a similar phenomenon in humans, we prospectively examined the relationships of maternal stress beginning in infancy and concurrent stress on preschoolers’ hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal activity and later mental health symptoms. Methods: Salivary co...

In many species of vertebrates, prenatal and early postnatal stress can have long-lasting consequences for neuroanatomical, neuroendocrine, or behavioral development. In primates including humans, prenatal psychosocial stress and postnatal psychosocial stress induced by the mother’s behavior represent important sources of nongenetic maternal effects through which mothers can modify their offspr...

early life stress during fetal development has been hypothesized to predispose several neurological and psychiatric disorders in adulthood. the purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of maternal stress on the volume of granular cells, total number of dark neurons and also the distribution of glycol-conjugates and changes of terminal sugars in the dentate gyrus. pregnant sprague-daw...

In infants exposed to maternal stress in utero, phenotypic plasticity through epigenetic events may mechanistically explain increased risk of preterm birth (PTB), which confers increased risk for neurodevelopmental disorders, cardiovascular disease, and cancers in adulthood. We examined associations between prenatal maternal stress and PTB, evaluating the role of DNA methylation at imprint regu...