How Life Before Birth Affects Human Health and What We Can Do About It

Abstract

In most Western countries, age reckoning starts with ‘‘zero,’’ so that twelve months after birth, a child is considered one year old. In the traditional East Asian age reckoning system, originating in China and still widely used in some East Asian countries such as Korea, newborns start life outside the womb at one year old (becoming two years old on the first day of the subsequent lunar New Year’s day). This not only results in interesting intercultural constellations – a Korean baby born in November 2014 might be one year older than a Swiss baby born in December 2013 – but the traditional East Asian age reckoning also gently reminds us of something else: Life starts to ‘‘count’’ well before birth. In science, however, the relevance of life before birth for our health throughout life has been largely neglected for far too long. However, during the past decades, numerous studies have pointed out the relevance of (behaviorally relevant) adversities during pregnancy as risk factors for offspring mental disorders, bodily processes, and physical diseases throughout life (e.g., Barker & Thornburg, 2013; Dreier, Andersen, & Berg-Beckhoff, 2014; Entringer et al., 2011; Tegethoff, Greene, Olsen, Schaffner, & Meinlschmidt, 2012; Tegethoff, Olsen, Schaffner, & Meinlschmidt, 2013; Tegethoff, Pryce, & Meinlschmidt, 2009; Tegethoff, Raul, et al., 2011; Van den Bergh, 2011). What has been merged under the term ‘‘developmental origins of health and disease’’ is a highly topical dynamic research field focusing on the fetal period of development, with the aim of elucidating relevant adversities, their costs for offspring development and health, and the biological mechanisms involved in relating the intrauterine environment and long-term results. While the field has already been extensively reviewed (e.g., Beydoun & Saftlas, 2008; Gluckman, Hanson, & Low, 2011; Hertzman, 2012; Koletzko et al., 2014; Luoto, Mottola, & Hilakivi-Clarke, 2013; Tegethoff, 2009), concise overviews of protective factors promoting resilience, and – even more importantly – of interventions aimed at modifying the above-mentioned risk factors are hitherto largely lacking, with a few exceptions (e.g., Koletzko et al., 2012). This special issue of European Psychologist is intended as a contribution toward closing this gap. It has repeatedly been shown that adversities during pregnancy may impact on the developing fetus (e.g., Dieter et al., 2001; Hansen, Lou, & Olsen, 2000; Huttunen & Niskanen, 1978; Khashan et al., 2008; Tegethoff, Greene, Olsen, Meyer, & Meinlschmidt, 2010a, 2010b). As one prominent example, a study on intrauterine growth of the offspring of women who were pregnant at the time of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US indicated that stressful experiences during pregnancy may affect intrauterine processes (Berkowitz et al., 2003). Decades earlier, David Barker and colleagues from Southampton in the UK showed in various studies that low birth weight is related to an increased risk of morbidity and premature mortality (Barker, 2007). Based on these findings, they formulated the ‘‘fetal origins of adult disease hypothesis’’ in the 1980s (later reframed as the ‘‘developmental origins of health and disease’’ (DOHAD) hypothesis), stating that ‘‘undernutrition in utero permanently changes the body’s structure, physiology, and metabolism, and leads to coronary heart disease and stroke in adult life’’ (Barker, 1998, p. 13). They developed this hypothesis based on findings of a strong association Special Issue: Prenatal Adversity: Impact and Potential Interventions