OBJECTIVE Childhood obesity affects nearly 17% of children and adolescents in the United States. Increasing evidence indicates that prenatal maternal stress signals influence fetal growth, child obesity, and metabolic risk. Children exhibiting catch-up growth, a rapid and dramatic increase in body size, within the first two years of life are also at an increased risk for developing metabolic disorder and obesity. We evaluate the potential role of the maternal hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) and placental axis in programming risk for child obesity. METHOD This prospective longitudinal study measured placental corticotropin-releasing hormone (pCRH) and maternal plasma cortisol at 15, 19, 25, 30, and 37 gestational weeks and collected child body mass index (BMI) at birth, 3, 6, 12, and 24 months. Participants included 246 mothers and their healthy children born full term. Each child’s BMI percentile (BMIP) was determined using World Health Organization (WHO) standards based on age and sex. Child BMIP profiles from birth to two years of age were characterized using General Growth Mixture Modeling (GGMM). We evaluated whether fetal exposure to placental CRH and maternal cortisol are associated with BMIP profiles. RESULTS Placental CRH at 30 gestational weeks was highly associated with both BMIP (p <.05) and weight (p <.05) at birth when accounting for gestational age at birth and used as a predictor in modeling BMIP profiles. Maternal cortisol was not associated with child BMIP. GGMM analyses identified four distinct BMIP profiles: Typical, Rapid Increase, Delayed Increase, and Decreasing (See Figure 2). The Typical profile comprised the majority of the sample and maintained BMIP across the first two years. The Rapid and Delayed Increase profiles each exhibit a period of reduced body size followed by BMI catch-up growth. The Rapid Increase profile exhibited catch-up within the first 3 months while the Delayed group showed an initial decrease in BMIP at 3 months and a dramatic increase from 12 to 24 months The Decreasing profile exhibited normal birth weight and BMIP followed by persisting, low BMIP. The members of the Rapid and Delayed Increase profiles were exposed to the highest concentrations of placental CRH at 30 gestational weeks compared to those in the Typical profile group (Figure 3). CONCLUSIONS Exposure to elevated placental CRH concentrations during the third trimester is associated with catch up growth. An early period of small body size followed by rapid catch-up growth is a profile associated with increased metabolic risk and increased obesity risk. Our findings suggest that placental CRH exposure makes a unique contribution to fetal programming of obesity risk.

Children born preterm show persisting impairments in cognitive functioning, school achievement, and brain development. Most research has focused on implications of birth prior to 37 gestational weeks; however, the fetal central nervous system continues to make fundamental changes throughout gestation. Longer gestation is associated with reduced morbidity and mortality even among infants born during the period clinically defined as full term (37–41 gestational weeks). The implications of shortened gestation among term infants for neurodevelopment are poorly understood. The present study prospectively evaluates 232 mothers and their full term infants (50.4% male infants) at three time points across the first postnatal year. We evaluate the association between gestational length and cognitive and motor development. Infants included in the study were full term (born between 37 and 41 weeks gestation). The present study uses the combination of Last Menstrual Period (LMP) and early ultrasound for accurate gestational dating. Hierarchical Linear Regression analyses revealed that longer gestational length is associated with higher scores on the Bayley scales of mental and motor development at 3, 6 and 12 months of age after considering socio-demographic, pregnancy, and infant-level covariates. Findings were identical using revised categories of early, term, and late term proposed by the Working Group for Defining Term Pregnancy. Our findings indicate that longer gestation, even among term infants, benefits both cognitive and motor development.

It is widely assumed that glucocorticoids represent a primary mechanism through which exposure to adversity and maternal psychological distress shape prenatal developmental trajectories of both mother and fetus. However, despite repeated investigations and the fact that prenatal cortisol has been reliably linked to developmental outcomes, the empirical evidence supporting an association between prenatal cortisol and maternal distress is scarce. In this study, a novel approach to assessing links between maternal prenatal psychological distress and gestational cortisol profiles, general growth mixture modeling (GGMM), was applied. Method: Measures of pregnancy anxiety, perceived stress, and state anxiety and depressive symptoms as well as plasma samples (for determination of cortisol) were collected from 250 women 4 times during pregnancy. Results: Using GGMM, 3 cortisol trajectory groups were identified, including a typical group (n ϭ 199) that exhibited the expected steady increase in cortisol throughout gestation, a steep group (n ϭ 31) displaying an accelerated increase in cortisol over the course of pregnancy relative to the typical group, and a flat group (n ϭ 20) with relatively higher cortisol levels early in pregnancy that plateaued in midgestation. Women reporting the highest distress scores exhibited trajectories expected to be associated with the least optimal developmental outcomes (flatter trajectories characterized by relatively higher levels early in gestation and lower levels late in gestation). Conclusions: These findings suggest that psychological distress during pregnancy is associated with unique prenatal cortisol profiles and support further examination of this link, to enable continued evaluation of a plausible biological pathway by which maternal psychological distress programs fetal development.

IntroductionDespite the well-accepted view on the importance of parental warmth and parental hostility for adolescent development, few studies have examined the joint interactive effects of these two key aspects of parenting. Furthermore, research comparing maternal and paternal parenting is limited, with the father-daughter relationship during adolescence remaining one of the more understudied familial contexts. Given that family processes are key for the intergenerational transmission of inequality, these parent–child relationships may be especially important for youth at risk for exposure to violence.ObjectivesUsing a sample of juvenile female offenders, this study examined the associations between the perceived warmth and hostility in the father-daughter and mother-daughter relationships on daughters’ depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, romantic partner warmth, romantic partner hostility, and the daughter’s sense of agency. We hypothesized that high perceived parental warmth would moderate the effects of parental hostility by protecting daughters from the negative effects of parental hostility, with stronger effects for the father-daughter than the mother-daughter relationship.ResultsIn contrast, our paternal relationship findings across four of the five outcomes suggest a moderation in the opposite direction – that is, high perceived father warmth exacerbates the deleterious effects of father hostility on daughters’ depressive symptoms, anxiety, romantic partner warmth, and romantic partner hostility. Maternal warmth, and not hostility, had a direct association with these four outcomes, with stronger explanatory power shown for the father-daughter than the mother-daughter model. Higher agency was associated with maternal hostility only.ConclusionOur findings suggest that daughters might be modeling and internalizing the relationship with their fathers (for better or worse) when they perceive it as warm and supportive. Consequently, adolescent girls whose fathers exhibit hostile behavior may benefit from emotional distancing from their fathers.