Interest in prenatal exposures shaping later life has increased considerably in the past two decades. Set forth by Barker in the 1980s, the fetal programing hypothesis posits that in-utero exposures affect the early development of organs and tissues in ways that persist into adulthood. 1 Barker DJ The Wellcome Foundation Lecture, 1994. The fetal origins of adult disease. Proc R Soc Lond B. 1995; 262: 37-43 Crossref PubMed Scopus (238) Google Scholar The study of fetal programming has extended to neurodevelopment, with a growing amount of scientific literature of human and animal studies suggesting that prenatal maternal depression places offspring at increased risk for mental disorders. 2 Kim DR Bale TL Epperson CN Prenatal programming of mental illness: current understanding of relationship and mechanisms. Curr Psychiatry Rep. 2015; 17: 5 Crossref PubMed Scopus (125) Google Scholar , 3 O'Donnell KJ Glover V Barker ED O'Connor TG The persisting effect of maternal mood in pregnancy on childhood psychopathology. Dev Psychopathol. 2014; 26: 393-403 Crossref PubMed Scopus (260) Google Scholar Although the need to account for genetic and shared environmental confounding has been previously argued, 4 Babineau V Green CG Jolicoeur-Martineau A et al. Prenatal depression and 5-HTTLPR interact to predict dysregulation from 3 to 36 months—a differential susceptibility model. J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2015; 56: 21-29 Crossref PubMed Scopus (41) Google Scholar the field has not consistently obliged. The study by Laurie Hannigan and colleagues 5 Hannigan LJ Eilertsen EM Gjerde LC et al. Maternal prenatal depressive symptoms and risk for early-life psychopathology in offspring: genetic analyses in the Norwegian Mother and Child Birth Cohort Study. Lancet Psychiatry. 2018; (published online Sept 20.)http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(18)30225-6 Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (42) Google Scholar will most certainly change that. Maternal prenatal depressive symptoms and risk for early-life psychopathology in offspring: genetic analyses in the Norwegian Mother and Child Birth Cohort StudyAssociations between maternal prenatal depressive symptoms and offspring behavioural outcomes in early childhood are likely to be at least partially explained by shared genes. This genetic confounding should be considered when attempting to quantify risks posed by in-utero exposure to maternal depressive symptoms. Full-Text PDF