BACKGROUND Intergenerational effects of child abuse have been documented, but it is unknown whether maternal childhood abuse influences offspring mental health in adolescence or adulthood. METHODS To examine whether maternal experience of childhood abuse is associated with depressive symptoms in adolescent and young adult offspring, we linked data from two large longitudinal cohorts of women ...

Congenital heart defects (CHDs) arise through various combinations of genetic and environmental factors. Our study explores how polymorphisms in the glutathione S-transferase (GST) genes affect the association between cigarette smoke exposure and CHDs. We analysed 299 mothers of children with CHDs and 284 mothers of children without any abnormalities who were recruited from six hospitals. The h...

Growing evidence suggests that maternal exposures to endocrine disrupting chemicals during pregnancy may lead to poor pregnancy outcomes and increased fetal susceptibility to adult diseases. Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), which are ubiquitously used flame-retardants, could leach into the environment; and become persistent organic pollutants via bioaccumulation. In the United States, bl...

Associations between marital conflict and infant emotion regulation exist, but explanatory pathways have not been explored. For older children, parental behavior partially mediates this association through a "spillover" process. We test: associations between mothers' and fathers' verbally aggressive marital conflict, infant temperament, and infant withdrawal; mediating effects of negative mater...

OBJECTIVES To investigate whether prenatal selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant exposure affects behavior in 3-year-olds of antenatally anxious or depressed mothers and whether risk was moderated by the serotonin transporter promoter (SLC6A4) genotype. DESIGN Prospective longitudinal cohort design. SETTING Vancouver. PARTICIPANTS Mothers and their 3-year-old childr...

Inequality between and within populations has origins in adverse early experiences. Developmental neuroscience shows how early biological and psychosocial experiences affect brain development. We previously identified inadequate cognitive stimulation, stunting, iodine deficiency, and iron-deficiency anaemia as key risks that prevent millions of young children from attaining their developmental ...

The stress inoculation hypothesis presupposes that brief intermittent stress exposure early in life induces the development of subsequent stress resistance in human and nonhuman primates. Rodent studies, however, suggest a role for maternal care rather than stress exposure per se (i.e., the maternal mediation hypothesis). To investigate these two hypotheses, we examined maternal care and the de...

This study tested whether maternal responsiveness may buffer the child to the effects of maternal depressive symptoms on DNA methylation of NR3C1, 11β-HSD2, and neuroendocrine functioning. DNA was derived from buccal epithelial cells and prestress cortisol was obtained from the saliva of 128 infants. Mothers with depressive symptoms who were more responsive and who engaged in more appropriate t...

For decades, many studies have linked maternal smoking to an increased risk of preterm birth. As a result, the scientific community has long hypothesized that exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), commonly referred to as second-hand smoke, is also associated with an increased risk of preterm birth. Multiple studies have examined this proposed association through different strategies an...