Prenatal Maternal Cortisol Levels and Infant Birth Weight in a Predominately Low-Income Hispanic Cohort.

Alicia Peterson,Christine Naya,Genevieve Dunton,Theresa Bastain,Carrie Breton,Mark Johnson,Deborah Lerner,Brendan Grubbs,Shohreh Farzan,Thomas Chavez,Sandrah Eckel,Claudia M Toledo-Corral

doi:10.3390/ijerph17186896

Abstract

Infant birth weight influences numerous health outcomes throughout the life course including childhood obesity and metabolic morbidities. Maternal experience of stress, both before and during pregnancy, has been hypothesized to influence fetal growth and birth outcomes. However, these associations currently are not fully understood, due to conflicting results in the published literature. Salivary cortisol is often used as a biological biomarker to assess the diurnal pattern of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis (HPA-axis) functioning. Cortisol metrics include both the total cortisol concentration secreted during waking hours, reflected by the area under the curve (AUC), and cortisol dynamics, which include the diurnal cortisol slope (DCS) and the cortisol awakening response (CAR). This study examined the association of these cortisol metrics measured during the third trimester of pregnancy and infant birth weight among 240 mother-infant dyads participating in the Maternal and Developmental Risks from Environmental and Social Stressors (MADRES) pregnancy cohort study, which is predominately comprised of Hispanic low-income women. There were no significant associations with the maternal biological stress response and infant birth weight in this study. More research is needed in larger studies to better understand how the biological stress response influences birth weight in populations facing health disparities.

Highlights

Infant birth weight is an indicator of the intrauterine environment and is associated with numerous health outcomes throughout the life course [1,2]
In order to further elucidate the relationship between maternal HPA-axis activity during pregnancy and fetal growth, we aimed to explore the association of the maternal biological stress response during the third trimester through several cortisol metrics
In this study of predominately low-income Hispanic women, we found no statistically significant associations between the maternal biological stress response, measured by salivary cortisol concentration (AUCg) and diurnal cortisol dynamics (DCS and cortisol awakening response (CAR)) during the third trimester of pregnancy, with infant birth weight

Summary

Introduction

Infant birth weight is an indicator of the intrauterine environment and is associated with numerous health outcomes throughout the life course [1,2]. Fetal macrosomia (often defined as ≥4000 g) reflects infants large for gestational age at birth and can influence childhood weight gain and obesity risk [8,9,10]. Numerous maternal characteristics may positively or negatively impact infant birth weight, including smoking, nutrition, and hypertension [11]. In addition to these known risk factors, maternal experience of stressful life. Public Health 2020, 17, 6896; doi:10.3390/ijerph17186896 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph

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