BACKGROUND There are some indications that maternal lifestyle during pregnancy (smoking and stress) contributes to symptoms of ADHD in children. We prospectively studied whether prenatal exposure to maternal smoking and/or stress is associated with ADHD symptoms and diagnostic criteria (according to DSM-IV) in 7-year-olds. METHODS Nulliparous Scandinavian women were consecutively recruited at...

The question of whether psychosocial stress during pregnancy (alone or in combination with fetal alcohol exposure) has negative consequences for offspring has not been clearly established in human studies. In this article, we present an overview of three prospective longitudinal studies. Using rhesus monkeys as subjects, a noise or hormone stressor, alone or in combination with moderate level a...

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...

Protective Effects of Melatonin on Prenatal Restraint Stress-Induced Memory Impairment in Offspring Rats

Fetal exposure to prenatal maternal stress can have lifelong consequences, with different types of maternal stress associated with different areas of child development. Fewer studies have focused on motor skills, even though they are strongly predictive of later development across a range of domains. Research on mechanisms of transmission has identified biological cascades of stress reactions, ...

  Objective(s): Stress induces many homeostatic aberrations which are followed by lifelong allostatic responses. Epilepsy is developed or influenced by different environmental factors, i.e. prenatal stress which makes many contradictory developmental changes in seizure threshold and intensity. We investigated the potential seizure response of the rat offspring to prenatal stress; the stres...

Prenatal stress in rats results in structural, physiological and behavioral alterations that persist in adulthood. Serotonin (5-HT) is an important neurotransmitter known to be involved in these prenatal stress-induced behavioral alterations. The aim of the study was to investigate the effects of interrupted synthesis of 5-HT and immobilization stress during different gestational period on brai...

Prenatal stress (stress experienced by a pregnant mother) and its effects on offspring have been comprehensively studied but relatively little research has been done on how prenatal social stress affects farm animals such as goats. Here, we use the operational description of 'stress' as "physical or perceived threats to homeostasis." The aim of this study was to investigate the prenatal effects...

The transition to parenthood is widely considered a period of increased vulnerability often accompanied by stress. Abidin conceived parenting stress as referring to specific difficulties in adjusting to the parenting role. Most studies of psychological distress arising from the demands of parenting have investigated the impact of stress on the development of dysfunctional parent-child relations...