“…There is a growing body of research linking lifespan adversity and stress sensitization with prenatal stress biology. Recent studies have found that women's experiences with childhood maltreatment either related directly to dysregulated prenatal stress biology, including inflammatory processes (McCormack et al., 2021), hypothalamic‐pituitary‐adrenal axis functioning (Epstein et al., 2019; Khoury et al., 2019; Morrison et al., 2017; Stephens et al., 2020; Swales et al., 2018; Thomas et al., 2018), and placental corticotropin‐releasing hormone (Steine et al., 2020), or strengthened associations with adulthood adversity (Epstein et al., 2019; Swales et al., 2018). These biological processes are hypothesized mechanistic pathways through which stress can influence maternal and fetal health (Gitau et al., 1998; Steine et al., 2020); thus, these studies are vital to advancing perinatal healthcare.…”