Childbirth as a Biological Model for Stress?

Abstract

Objective: The aims of this investigation were to measure corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH), corticotropin (ACTH) and cortisol before, during and after delivery searching for an endocrine intercorrelation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and to correlate these findings with obstetrical variables. Methods: Blood was sampled from 50 women with singleton pregnancies at term without uterine contractions, during delivery (after full cervical dilatation) and on the 4th postnatal day. Hormones were measured by radioimmunoassay (RIA). The correlation between obstetric variables, sociodemographic and endocrine data were evaluated using the Spearman rank coefficient. Group comparisons for continuous variables were calculated using the Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal-Wallis test. Results: Maternal plasma ACTH and cortisol increased significantly during labor, declining toward the 4th postnatal day (p < 0.001) and showing a significant intercorrelation (p < 0.01). Compared to women without uterine contractions CRH rose during labor (p < 0.05) and decreased rapidly to the 4th postnatal day (p < 0.001). No correlations between CRH and ACTH or cortisol were observed. None of the obstetrical variables (parity, newborn’s weight, duration of delivery) revealed any significant correlation with ACTH. Analgetic medication (pethidine hydrochloride) was not able to influence the endocrine response to labor stress. Conclusions: Stressful experience during childbirth has an impact on endocrine response. However, this is not fully evident along the HPA axis in a simple biological model with monocausal dependencies. This ‘biological stress model’ is not sensitive enough to detect different childbirth conditions and the hormones in the maternal compartment have partially fetal (placental) origin.

Leukocytes count and profile during early postnatal ontogenesis in domestic cats: Effect of litter size and multiple paternity

“…Studies in humans have shown that maternal glucocorticoids after birth are reduced to their previous state within 4 days (Bergant et al, 1998). According to our results, in domestic kittens, a decrease in the percentage of neutrophils and an increase in the proportion/ number of lymphocytes ended in the first month of life.…”

“…The number of leukocytes and neutrophils in kittens in the first day after birth (white-single paternity; grey-multiple paternity) adrenocorticotropic hormone (Alehagen et al, 2005;Bergant et al, 1998). In cows, a few days before calving, the number of neutrophils in the blood increases by 2-3 times; a similar picture is observed in newborn calves (Simonyan and Khisamutdinov 1995).…”

Cortisol as a Biomarker of Stress in Term Human Labor

“…Yet, unlike the strong association of ACTH to cortisol in nonpregnant women, the relationship of ACTH to cortisol in labor and the stress of labor are unclear. Although data are limited, in one study ( N = 28), investigators found no correlation between ACTH and cortisol levels during labor (Odagiri et al, 1982), while in a second study there was a weak positive correlation ( r = .37, N = 50) between ACTH and cortisol levels (Bergant et al, 1998). However, variables such as the point in labor when data were collected were not consistent between these two studies.…”