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.     

Moderate alcohol consumption during pregnancy and the risk of low birth weight and preterm birth. The generation R study

PURPOSE: To examine the associations of alcohol consumption in different periods of pregnancy with the risks of low birth weight and preterm birth. METHODS: This study was based on 7141 subjects participating in a population-based prospective cohort study from early pregnancy. Alcohol consumption was assessed in early, mid, and late pregnancy. Birth outcomes were birth weight in grams, low birth weight (<2500 g), small size for gestational age at birth (< -2 standard deviation scores) and preterm birth (gestational age <37 weeks). RESULTS: Overall, alcohol consumption during pregnancy was not associated with adverse birth outcomes. However, dose-response analyses showed tendencies toward adverse effects of average consumption of 1 or more alcoholic drinks per day in early pregnancy on birth weight (difference -129 g [95% confidence interval (CI): -271, 12]), low birth weight (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 4.81 [95% CI: 1.10, 21.08]), small size for gestational age at birth (aOR 1.45 [95% CI: 0.33, 6.44]) and preterm birth (aOR 2.51 [95% CI: 0.92, 6.81]). Similar effects were found in late pregnancy. CONCLUSION: Average consumption of one or more but not less than one alcoholic drink per day in early or late pregnancy seems to be associated with adverse birth outcomes in the offspring.