The consequences of childhood maltreatment and current life stress for pregnant women’s hair cortisol levels

• In Event: Timing matters: Implications of Early-life and concurrent adversity for HPA axis activity across multiple timescales

Abstract

Threats to a child’s sense of security—such as childhood abuse—as well as a lack of consistent and responsive caregiving—such as childhood neglect—are expected to result in maladaptive behavioral regulation patterns (Bowlby, 1988). One pathway through which childhood abuse and neglect may impact developmental outcomes is the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis (Lupien et al., 2009). The HPA axis is part of the neuroendocrine system that aids in responding to acute threats to safety. For that reason, the end product of the HPA axis, cortisol, has been used as a biomarker of stress. Hair cortisol concentration (HCC) levels represent overall cortisol production across a six-month period (Russell et al., 2012; Stadler et al., 2016). Prior studies have reported both positive and negative associations between early adversity and later hair HCCs (Bosse et al., 2018; Stalder et al., 2016). These conflicting results may be indicative of the inconsistencies in how this literature defines early adversity. We propose a model in which unique effects of neglect, a marker of deprivation, differ from the potential unique effects of abuse, a marker of threat exposure. Specifically, this study tests whether abuse and neglect have unique consequences later HCCs. We also examined whether the consequences of early experiences of abuse and/or neglect on HCCs in adulthood were conditional on current life stress.

One hundred and thirty-six women were invited into our laboratory during their third trimester of pregnancy. Women rated their recalled experiences of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse as well as emotional and physical neglect during childhood and adolescence using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (Bernstein & Fink, 1998). Composites representing abuse and neglect were created. Women also completed a Life Stress Interview (Hammen et al., 1987), which is an approximately 60-minute interview that focuses on individuals’ romantic, friendships, and familial relationships as well as education, work, financial, and health stress. A composite measure representing chronic stress across a 6-month period was created. Women’s HCCs were derived from six-centimeter hair samples that were taken at the time of the lab visit. Body mass index was included as a covariate in all models due to its associations with HCCs (Conradt et al., 2020).

Linear regression analyses indicated that childhood neglect was positively associated with HCCs (Model 1 in Table 1). Although childhood neglect was negatively associated with HCCs, this was associated was moderated by current life stress (Model 2 in Table 1). Simple slope analyses indicated that childhood abuse was positively associated with HCCs only for women who were experiencing low current life stress (Figure 1).

Altogether, these results suggest that experiences of both neglect and abuse--indicative of deprivation and threat, respectively--may result in hyper-regulatory cortisol patterns, although the effects of childhood abuse are contingent on current experiences of life stress.

Authors

• Jennifer Isenhour, University of Utah
  Presenting Author

• Bailey Speck, University of Utah

• Liz Conradt, Duke University

• Sheila E Crowell, University of Utah

• Lee Raby, University of Utah