Abstract
Disorders in the expression of plasma homocysteine are significantly related to psychological stress. There is also evidence that prenatal maternal psychological stress could lead to adverse birth outcomes. The present study aimed to determine whether disorders in the expression of plasma homocysteine would be associated with the adverse birth outcomes following prenatal psychological stress (PPS).
Highlights
It has been shown that prenatal psychological stress (PPS) can result in adverse birth out comes, such as intrauterine growth restriction and preterm birth [1,2,3]
Compared with the off-springs of women without PPS, birth weight, birth length and head circumference were significantly lower in the off-springs of women with PPS (2849 ± 740 g vs. 3212 ± 578 g, P = 0.003; 48.0 ± 3.7 cm vs. 49.3 ± 2.6 cm, P = 0.029; 32.4 ± 2.2 cm vs. 33.4 ± 1.4 cm, P = 0.002)
The present study explored the impacts of PPS on maternal plasma homocysteine and birth outcomes, and further investigated the relationship between maternal plasma homocysteine and birth outcome
Summary
It has been shown that prenatal psychological stress (PPS) can result in adverse birth out comes, such as intrauterine growth restriction and preterm birth [1,2,3]. Several psychosocial stressors, such as death of close relative or husband and other grievous life events could bring about poor birth outcomes [4]. It is worth noting that psychological stress was significantly related to higher levels of plasma homocysteine [7]. Rodents studies show that plasma Homocysteine significantly increases just after restrained stress [8,9]. Both chronic [10] or acute [11,12] psychological stress could result in increased plasma homocysteine levels in human studies
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