Content area
Full Text
(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)
Regular Articles
We are extremely grateful to all of the families who took part in this study; the midwives for their help in recruiting them; and the whole Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children team, which includes interviewers, computer and laboratory technicians, clerical workers, research scientists, volunteers, managers, receptionists, and nurses. The UK Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, and the University of Bristol currently provide core support for the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. This particular project was funded in part by NIH Grant R01 MH073842.
Developmental or adaptive programming, including in the fetal period, has emerged as a major model for understanding the developmental origins of health outcomes. The model proposes that in utero exposures instigate an adaptive response in the organism that is carried forward in development with persisting effects on behavior and biology. Much of this work focuses on poor nutrition or an index of poor growth (e.g., low birth weight) as the causal factor, although other and additional sources of stress with causal effects may be operating (Barker, 1999; Gluckman & Hanson, 2004; Painter, Roseboom, & Bleker, 2005; Wadhwa, Buss, Entringer, & Swanson, 2009). Evidence for the model as applied to cardiovascular and metabolic outcomes is substantial, derives from numerous large-scale investigations in diverse settings, and has spawned an influential line of study because of its potential to influence health and development of populations in developed and developing countries (Gillman et al., 2007).
Building on the fetal programming model for somatic health, several research groups are seeking to translate the model for psychological and neuroscience outcomes. These studies focus on maternal prenatal anxiety or stress as a putative causal agent initiating a developmental programming response. The focus on prenatal anxiety or stress follows from decades of experimental animal studies linking prenatal stress to sizable and lasting effects on offspring fear, neurogenesis, immunity, and stress physiology, among other outcomes (Coe et al., 2003; Maccari et al., 2003). A number of observational studies in humans show that prenatal anxiety or stress in the mother is associated with behavioral outcomes in children (Bergman, Sarkar, O'Connor, Modi, & Glover, 2007; Buitelaar, Huizink, Mulder, de Medina, & Visser, 2003; Davis, Glynn, Waffarn, & Sandman, 2011; O'Connor,...