Childhood abuse is associated with increased hair cortisol levels among urban pregnant women

Abstract

Background Hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis activity is known to be altered following events such as childhood abuse. However, despite potential adverse consequences for the offspring of women who have experienced abuse, very little is known about altered HPA axis activity during pregnancy. Methods During pregnancy, 180 women from diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds reported on their exposure to emotional, physical and/or sexual abuse before the age of 11, and general post-traumatic stress symptoms (ie, not limited to childhood years or abuse experiences). Around delivery, they provided hair samples for the assessment of cortisol levels during pregnancy. Hair cortisol was assessed for each pregnancy trimester. The effect of childhood abuse on hair cortisol was assessed using mixed-effects analyses of covariance models allowing for within-subject correlated observations, and were first performed in the entire sample and subsequently stratified by race/ethnicity. Results Controlling for post-traumatic stress symptoms, hair cortisol levels varied by history of child abuse, F(2,166)=3.66, p=0.028. Childhood physical and/or sexual abuse was associated with greater hair cortisol levels, t(166)=2.65, p=0.009, compared with no history of abuse. Because childhood rates of abuse and hair cortisol levels varied by race/ethnicity, analyses were stratified by race/ethnicity. The associations between history of abuse and cortisol levels were only significant among black women, F(2,23)=5.37, p=0.012. Conclusions Childhood abuse, especially physical and/or sexual abuse, is associated with differences in cortisol production during pregnancy, particularly among black women. Future research should investigate how these differences impact physical and mental health outcomes among offspring of affected women.

Measures of Maternal Stress and Mood in Relation to Preterm Birth

“…Limitations of this study include a relative lack of racial diversity, collection from a single study site and, as just recently published, an inability to account for the impact of childhood trauma on maternal hair cortisol concentrations. 36 …”

Migraine and its psychiatric comorbidities

“…One hypothesis for the association between abuse and migraine involves cortisol dysfunction and stress reactivity. Perhaps past abuse modifies the HPA axis leading to greater stress reactivity and migraine 47 48…”

Oxytocin pathways in the intergenerational transmission of maternal early life stress

“…Some preliminary evidence supports the notion that MPF endocrine stress biology is altered in the context of maternal ELS. It has been shown that ELS-exposure predicts alterations of placental CRH (Moog et al, 2015) and cortisol concentrations in saliva (Bublitz and Stroud, 2012) and hair (Schreier et al, 2015) during pregnancy. As discussed earlier, OT has the potential to down-regulate HPA-axis mediators and an ELS-associated lower OT activity and/or reduced OTR sensitivity may partly explain the elevated cortisol levels in pregnant women.…”