Maternal corticotropin-releasing hormone and habituation in the human fetus

Measuring the ups and downs of pregnancy stress

“…A convergent body of academic evidence supports maternal psychosocial factors as contributors to fetal development and pregnancy outcomes. Negative emotions, including maternal anxiety and perceived stress, are associated with reduced fetal heart rate variability 1 , greater motor activity 2,3 , alterations in state 4,5 , and disturbances to fetal habituation 6 . Affected outcomes include spontaneous abortions 7,8 , pregnancy complications 9 , shortened length of gestation, preterm delivery and/or low birth weight [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] .…”

Psychobiological Stress and Preterm Birth

“…The difference in behavior of the CRH gene in the placenta and hypothalamus is due to the expression of different transcription factors, co-activators and co-repressors in these two tissues (King et al, 2002). The increase of CRH especially over the latter part of human gestation plays a fundamental role in the organization of the fetal nervous system (Sandman et al, 1999b), influencing the timing of the onset of spontaneous labor and delivery (McLean et al, 1995;Sandman et al, 2006;Smith et al, 2002;Smith & Nicholson, 2007;Tyson et al, 2009) and in maternal adaptation during pregnancy, including dampening psychological stress (Glynn & Sandman, in press). …”

“…The association between maternal plasma concentrations of CRH and preterm labor/delivery has been examined in many published studies (Markovic et al, 2007). During pregnancy, maternal stress threatens the fetal nervous system (Coe et al, 2003;Insel et al, 1990;Poland et al, 1999;Sanchez et al, 1993;Sandman et al, 2003;Sandman et al, 1999a;Sandman et al, 1999b;Weinstock, 1996) and shortens the length of gestation (Campbell et al, 1987;McLean et al, 1995;Wadhwa et al, 2004;Wadhwa et al, 1998;Wadhwa et al, 1993;Warren et al, 1992;Wolfe et al, 1988). The general findings are that plasma CRH concentrations of women in preterm labor are significantly higher than those of gestationalage matched controls and the rate of change of CRH over gestation is accelerated in women destined to deliver early.…”

“…At the physiological level, it is clear that many factors are involved in the onset of labor, including hormonal metabolism and structural changes to the uterus and myometrium (Petraglia et al, 1996) but the effects and interactions among these factors are not fully understood (Challis, 1994). Research from our group Sandman et al, 2006;Sandman et al, 1995Sandman et al, , 1999bWadhwa et al, 1996;Wadhwa et al, 2004;Wadhwa et al, 1998) and many others (Braastad, 1998;Lindsay & Nieman, 2005;Makrigiannakis et al, 2007;Neumann et al, 1998) indicates that a primary pathway of the effects of stress on the human fetus is the HPA stress axis. This review will focus on the role that stress plays in determining preterm birth.…”

Glucocorticoids: Biochemical Group That Play Key Role in Fetal Programming of Adult Disease

“…High P-CRH, as a marker of maternal stress, during third trimester associated with weak fetal responsiveness to noval stimuli (79). Postnataly, there is significant reduction in physical and neuromuscular development in neonates who exposed to higher maternal cortisol as well as P-CRH during second and third trimester respectively (80).…”