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Beyond the influences of parental genetics and postnatal developmental factors, maternal stress during pregnancy is thought to increase psychiatric risk in offspring, but pathways and mechanisms accounting for these processes have been unclear. To learn more, researchers conducted a study enrolling 61 women with healthy pregnancies who eventually delivered at term.
Between gestational weeks 24 and 27, the women completed stress and mood questionnaires and had salivary cortisol measurements; at 34 to 37 weeks, “coupling” of fetal movement and heart rate was ascertained; finally, DNA methylation was determined for three glucocorticoid-related genes taken from placental samples at birth. Coupling of fetal movement and heart rate increases durin…