Measurement of cortisol and other factors in cord blood: Possible use in predicting future illness and as a guide to individual preventive medicine

Abstract

It is suggested that measurement of certain cord blood components may be used to predict future development and to suggest preventive steps in infants at risk. Ways are discussed which may permit use of cord blood composition to predict some metabolic features peculiar to future development including predisposition to certain diseases. The state immediately after normal term delivery may be regarded as the best for comparative examination of individual features, for it provides the most similar conditions — the closest stages of development and similar stress-induced factors. Birth stress conditions may exaggerate and reveal individual metabolic peculiarities and render them especially distinct in cord blood composition. Finally most changes in fetal metabolism may be regarded as arising from constitutional factors within the fetus since environmental influences are much reduced in importance having first to pass through the maternal organism. Therefore cord blood biochemical profiles would permit us to distinguish different biological types among people in the same way as different blood groups are distinguished. In particular the cortisol level in cord blood, in relation to labor duration, probably reflects future susceptibility to allergies with all its possible complications. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the cortisol level in cord blood has been shown to be independent of many interferring factors, such as Rh incompatibility, maternal diabetes or pre-eclamptic state and is not influenced by gravidity or by advancing gestational age. The cortisol level in cord blood has also been shown to be independent of season and unrelated to a number of fetal features such as body weight and sex of newborn, Apgar score, autosomal trisomy or anencephaly or to other certain physical defects. The next step would be the specific selection of proper preventive measures for the biological type concerned instead of the universal application of preventative measures.