Parental psychological distress during pregnancy and childhood cardiovascular development. The Generation R Study

Background

Maternal psychological distress during pregnancy might lead to higher fetal cortisol exposure, which subsequently leads to fetal cardiovascular developmental adaptations and cardiovascular dysfunction in later life.

Aims

We examined whether maternal and paternal psychological distress was associated with the cardiovascular outcome measurements in school age children.

Study design and subjects

In a population-based prospective cohort study among 4831 children, we assessed maternal and paternal psychological distress during pregnancy by questionnaire, using the Brief Symptom Inventory (see Fig. 1).

Outcome measures

At the child age of six years, we performed blood pressure and carotid–femoral pulse wave velocity measurements, and M-mode measurements of left cardiac structures and fractional shortening.

Results

We did not observe associations of high maternal and paternal psychological symptom scores with childhood blood pressure and carotid–femoral pulse wave velocity after adjustment for potential confounders. Maternal overall psychological symptoms were associated with a lower childhood left ventricular mass (difference − 1.10 g (95% confidence interval − 2.13 to − 0.07) between mothers with high scores and normal scores), but not with other cardiac structures and fractional shortening. Paternal overall psychological symptoms showed a similar association with childhood left ventricular mass (difference − 1.34 grams (95% confidence interval − 3.69 to 1.02) between fathers with high scores and normal scores).

Conclusions

Our results do not support the hypothesis that maternal psychological distress affects cardiovascular development in early life. Similar associations of maternal and paternal psychological distress with left ventricular mass suggest that these associations could be due to unmeasured social and environmental factors, rather than direct intra-uterine effects.     

Recognition of scared faces and the serotonin transporter gene in young children: the Generation R Study

Background: Previous research highlights the significance of a functional polymorphism located in the promoter region (5‐HTTLPR) of the serotonin transporter gene in emotional behaviour. This study examined the effect of the 5‐HTTLPR polymorphism on emotion processing in a large number of healthy preschoolers. Methods: The 5‐HTTLPR genotype was classified in 605 children as homozygous for the short allele (SS), homozygous for the long allele (LL), or heterozygous (LS). Emotion‐processing was assessed using age‐appropriate computer tasks where children matched happy, sad, angry, and fearful facial expressions preceded by a shape‐matching task to assess basic matching ability. Results: We found that young children could differentiate between emotion categories (F = 12.1, p < .001). The effect of 5‐HTTLPR genotype depended on the emotion category presented (F = 2.3, p = .031). This effect was explained by the finding that SS children were less accurate at recognising fearful faces than LL or LS children (F = 5.3, p = .005). We did not find any significant differences as a result of 5‐HTTLPR genotype for happy, sad or angry expressions (p > .05). Conclusions: Results indicate that 5‐HTTLPR allele status selectively impacts the processing of fearful but not other facial expressions. This pattern is already apparent in very young typically developing children. Results may signal an early vulnerability for affective problems before disorders emerge.     

Low autonomic arousal as vulnerability to externalising behaviour in infants with hostile mothers

Maternal psychopathology and the child's autonomic nervous system functioning are risk factors for aggressive behaviour later in life. While research has shown that maternal psychopathology already affects young children, less is known about the association between autonomic functioning and aggressive behaviour in young children. In addition, maternal psychopathology and autonomic nervous system functioning may interact to determine the risk of aggressive behaviour.In a sample of 375 infants and their mothers, maternal psychiatric symptoms were assessed with the Brief Symptom Inventory and toddler aggressive behaviour with the Child Behaviour Checklist. Infant heart rate was recorded at 14 months.Maternal psychiatric problems, including hostility and depression, were associated with toddler aggressive behaviour. Maternal psychiatric problems interacted with mean heart rate (P = 0.01) and HF variability (P = 0.03) in their effect on toddler aggressive behaviour.Mothers with high psychiatric problems, in particular, high hostility, were more likely to have toddlers with high aggressive behaviour. Moreover, in the presence of maternal risk factors, low autonomic arousal renders children particularly susceptible to aggressive behaviour.