Preconception and Prenatal Pathways to Child Biobehavioral Outcomes

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Mounting evidence indicates that both prenatal and early postnatal environments contribute to or “program” child emotional, cognitive, and biological development. This symposium presents new findings from a longitudinal, multi-site, community-based participatory research study conducted by the NIH-funded Community Child Health Network and a follow-up study in three of the five sites. These studies together tested the extent to which preconception parental factors (biological and psychological), in conjunction with prenatal and postnatal processes, influence child temperament, stress physiology, and neuroplasticity. The findings affirm the contribution of maternal stress and allostatic load (a multi-component measure of the cumulative effects of chronic and acute stressors) to a range of child biobehavioral outcomes. The integrative framework (Figure 1) and a succinct overview of previously reported findings will set the stage for the newest findings. Collectively, this research advances recommendations of the NICHD Scientific Vision Workshop on developmental origins of health and disease. Developmental programming may be established prior to conceiving a child, with increasing animal and human evidence that preconception, pre-implantation, and early gastrulation are critical periods influencing epigenetics. Biomarkers and self-reports from interviews with parents on stress, anxiety, depression, and resilience in the preconception period enable us to better understand variations in adaptation and health in pregnancy and determining optimal and suboptimal child outcomes. Of high importance is considering future applications of this emerging knowledge to help eliminate health disparities associated with lifelong exposure to racism, poor quality health care, and low socioeconomic status. Figure 1 provides the framework for the symposium’s papers.

Sub Unit

• Biological Processes: Psychophysiology

Chairs

• Sharon Landesman Ramey, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

• Chris Dunkel Schetter, University of California - Los Angeles

Discussant

• Elysia Poggi Davis, University of Denver

Individual Presentations

• Maternal Stress and Mental Health Before Pregnancy and Offspring Diurnal Cortisol in Early Childhood - Presenting Author: Christine Guardino, Dickinson College

• Prospective Associations of Parental Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms and Maternal Prenatal Inflammation With Child Telomere Length - Presenting Author: Gabrielle Rose Rinne, University of California - Los Angeles

• Understanding the Early Effects of Stress on Father Involvement in Residential and Non-Residential Fathers - Presenting Author: Nicole Mahrer, University of La Verne