Showing posts with label prenatal programming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prenatal programming. Show all posts

Saturday 20 March 2010

Stress During Pregnancy Linked to Higher Risk for Asthma in Offspring

The way that our physiology switches genes on or off in response to environmental circumstances/triggers/cues, a process now studied as 'epigenetics' or 'above the genes' is becoming increasingly understood. The way that stressors impact our lives, our genetic expression and our immune system is becoming more and more recognised and obvious as scientists seek to understand the role of the environment in disease profiles. The significance of the prenatal experience in setting the foundations for health and wellness or disease is now recognised as a reality for humans as well as other animal species.

What scientists are discovering as they study the role of the prenatal environment in health and disease, is that high levels of maternal stress during the prenatal period is associated with impaired immune modulation. This study gives further credence to the Barker hypothesis that the prenatal experience is programming the infant's physiology, including the immune system to respond to the environment it will be born into. In the case of children whose mothers experience chronic and high stress levels, they have immune systems that are more vulnerable and more highly triggered by adverse environmental factors.

"In the Urban Environment and Childhood Asthma Study, the investigators evaluated associations among prenatal maternal stress and cord blood mononuclear cell (CBMC) cytokine responses among 557 families in Boston; Baltimore, Maryland; New York City; St. Louis, Missouri, and other cities. Each child had a parent with history of asthma or allergy".
Cytokines are messenger molecules with a complex range of interweaving, intersecting pro inflammatory and anti inflammatory functions.

"This is the first study in humans to show that increased stress experienced during pregnancy in these urban, largely minority women, is associated with different patterns of cord blood cytokine production to various environmental stimuli, relative to babies born to lower-stressed mothers," lead author Rosalind Wright, MD, MPH, associate physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, said in a news release.

The obvious answer is take care of pregnant women. Reduce the environmental stressors that pregnant women have to negotiate on a day to day basis. Poverty, violence, poor nutrition, unwanted pregnancies, lack of preconceptual care, lack of meaningful, supportive care during pregnancy and birth etc are all environmental risk factors with huge implications for the health and wellbeing of mothers and their babies.

Midwifery care that is provided in a one to one relationship is very beneficial for helping a woman defuse her stress levels. As a woman feels safe with her midwife and as trust builds, discusses her fears, problems and life circumstances, emotional stress is releases and solution generating can begin. Our government needs to heed these studies and provide better care for pregnant women if they truly want better and healthier societies.



Stress During Pregnancy Linked to Higher Risk for Asthma in Offspring

Thursday 25 February 2010

Dirty tricks of the egg and sperm race - 24 February 2010 - New Scientist

The title of this article about gene expression from New Scientist is misleading. Not so much 'dirty tricks' but fascinating negotiations! New insights into how genes express and are modified by environmental factors, known as the field of 'epigenetics' provide provide a better understanding of how we become who we are.

"The imprinted genes include several with a role in embryo growth and development, most of which are also expressed in the brain, meaning that key traits like body size, cognitive ability and personality might be moulded by epigenetic inheritance".

Dirty tricks of the egg and sperm race - 24 February 2010 - New Scientist

Saturday 6 February 2010

Ancient remains put teeth into Barker hypothesis from PhysOrg

"The Barker hypothesis is named after epidemiologist David Barker, who during the 1980s began studying links between early infant health and later adult health. The theory, also known as the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease Hypothesis (DOHaD), has expanded into wide acceptance.

As one of the founders of the field of bioarcheology, Armelagos studies skeletal remains to understand how diet and disease affected populations. Tooth enamel can give a particularly telling portrait of physiological events, since the enamel is secreted in a regular, ring-like fashion, starting from the second trimester of fetal development."




Disruptions in the formation of the enamel, which can be caused by disease, poor diet or , show up as grooves on the .


Ancient remains put teeth into Barker hypothesis

Friday 8 January 2010

Aging well starts in womb, as mom's choices affect whole life - USATODAY.com


During the crucial "window of opportunity" before birth and during infancy, environmental cues help "program" a person's DNA, says Alexander Jones of Great Ormond Street Hospital in London and the University College of London Institute for Child Health. This happens through a delicate interplay of genes and the environment called epigenetics, which can determine how a baby reacts for the rest of its life, Jones says.
Through epigenetics, chemical groups attach to DNA. Although they don't change the order of the genes, the chemical groups can switch those genes on or off, Jones says.
Many things, such as chemical contaminants, can cause epigenetic changes. So babies exposed in the womb to synthetic hormones may begin responding abnormally to the natural hormones later made by their own bodies, says Hugh Taylor of Yale University School of Medicine".


"Babies and children also can develop abnormal reactions to stress, says Jack Shonkoff of Harvard University, co-author of a June paper on early influences in health in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
In the short term, reacting to typical, everyday difficulties can help people develop a healthy response to stress.
But persistent, "toxic" stress — such as neglect or extreme poverty — may program a child's nervous system to be on perpetual high alert. Over time, this can damage the immune response and lead to chronic ailments, such as heart disease and depression, the study says.


Aging well starts in womb, as mom's choices affect whole life - USATODAY.com

Wonderful to see the scientific literature on prenatal programming and epigenetics making into the mainstream arena. People who are thinking about becoming parents will find this information critical to their decision making. I wrote about preconceptual and pregnancy work in the book "Birth Territory and Midwifery Guardianship". For anyone who wants to learn more, they may find the book very useful.



Preconceptual counselling with a midwife is a big step in the right direction to managing the complexities of modern life and becoming a parent. Every parent wants the best for their children. This information helps them do take responsibility, seek out support and information before they get pregnant, then take the steps necessary to ensure a 'head' and 'heart' start for their child.

Thursday 7 January 2010

How Childhood Trauma Can Cause Adult Obesity - Yahoo! News

"Early adverse experience can disrupt the body's metabolic systems," says Shonkoff. "One of the cornerstones of biology is that our body's systems when they are young are reading the environment and establishing patterns to be maximally adaptive."
Researchers also posit that high levels of stress hormones caused by Adverse Childhood Experiences, known as ACEs can wear down the body over time. A temporary spike in blood pressure in response to a stressful event may be useful to power an adaptive fight-or-flight response, but over the long term constant high blood pressure could raise a person's risk for heart attack and stroke. Studies have also found that consistently elevated levels of stress hormones, like cortisol, can lead to permanent damage in certain brain regions linked to depression.
Recently, scientists have discovered that these changes can themselves be passed down from one generation to the next - a burgeoning new area of study called epigenetics. Such research may have significant and long-term implications for the prevention of obesity, addiction and other illnesses related to early life stress. After all, reducing childhood exposure to trauma in one generation may further benefit that generation's children and grandchildren.
If, for instance, a modern child's early life experience - in the womb and during the first five years, particularly - is constantly stressful, it would be incredibly energy-consuming, says Dr. Bruce Perry, senior fellow at the ChildTrauma Academy. "If your genes get the message that you are entering a stressful world, it makes complete adaptive sense to take the existing metabolism and tune it up to deposit fat and store energy to prepare for what the body is expecting will be a challenging and stressful life," he says".
How Childhood Trauma Can Cause Adult Obesity - Yahoo! News

Epigenetics is one of the fields of science that is demonstrating the importance of one to one midwifery care throughout the childbearing period for women and their families. Unmitigated stress leads to genetic, inflammatory and physiological changes that can be permanent. Homeostasis is disrupted and a process called Allostasis is triggered. Allostasis is when body systems are upregulated to cope with unrelieved stress and stress hormones.

Genes


When women feel cared about and valued and have a midwife to talk to about the day to day, moment to moment anxieties, fears and challenges that life and pregnancy brings, their stress response is dampened and their connection response is triggered. Discussing feelings, nutrition, exercise, relationships and changes with a midwife who cares and is interested is capacity building.

The human brain may contain up to one trillion neurons. These nerve cells are interconnected, as shown in this microscopic image, so that they can transmit electrical impulses—and information—to other cells. Image by 3D4Medical.com/Getty Images: National Geographic



When women feel in control, their stress hormones are down, their wellbeing hormones are up and they feel better about themselves. When women are informed and feel in control, they are more likely to do the self care things that help grow healthy babies.

Sunday 3 January 2010

EWG Minority Cord Blood Report Executive Summary | Environmental Working Group

A two-year study involving five independent research laboratories in the United States, Canada and the Netherlands has found up to 232 toxic chemicals in the umbilical cord blood of 10 babies from racial and ethnic minority groups. The findings constitute hard evidence that each child was exposed to a host of dangerous substances while still in its mother’s womb.
Government, academic and independent biomonitoring studies, including those by EWG, have detected up to 358 industrial chemicals, pesticides and pollutants in the cord blood of American infants. Exploring the so-called “additive” effects of possible carcinogens, hormone disrupters and neurotoxins is a new and urgent priority for environmental health scientists. EWG supports this very important work.

But as this science moves forward, we need to act now to reduce exposures that present the greatest health threats based on what we know today, even as scientists struggle to understand how the cocktail of chemicals in the womb could harm current and future generations.

Many of the up to 232 compounds detected in this study have been the target of regulatory action and government controls. As a rule, however, these actions came far too late, well after the environment and the human race were polluted to a degree that has raised serious health concerns. Our failure to act quickly has ensured that these chemicals will continue to pollute future generations for decades, even centuries to come.

EWG Minority Cord Blood Report Executive Summary | Environmental Working Group

Friday 13 November 2009

BBC NEWS | Health | Music 'nurtures' premature babies

Music 'nurtures' premature babies
Music may help block pain

Hospitals that play music to premature babies help them grow and thrive, mounting evidence suggests.

The benefits are said to be calmer infants and parents as well as faster weight gain and shorter hospital stays.

A Canadian team reviewed nine studies and found music reduced pain and encouraged better oral feeding.

Music also appeared to have beneficial effects on physiological measures like heart and respiratory rate, Archives of Disease in Childhood reports.

BBC NEWS | Health | Music 'nurtures' premature babies

and of course, an even better solution is to provide one to one midwifery care to women as the rates of premature birth drop when women have midwifery care.

Early life stress has effects at the molecular level

More evidence of the need to keep mothers and newborn babies together and ensure skin to skin uninterrupted time at birth. Maternity service providers, midwives and doctors take note

Early life stress has effects at the molecular level