Stress during pregnancy may affect baby’s sex

Pregnant women experiencing physical and psychological stress are less likely to have a boy, says a new study.

“Stress can also affect the mother’s immune system, leading to changes that affect neurological and behavioural development in the foetus,” said the study leader.

“What’s clear from our study is that maternal mental health matters, not only for the mother but also for her future child,” the researcher said.

For the findings,  the research team examined 27 indicators of psychosocial, physical and lifestyle stress collected from questionnaires, diaries, and daily physical assessments of 187 otherwise healthy pregnant women, aged between 18 to 45.

About 17 per cent of the women were psychologically stressed, with clinically meaningful high levels of depression, anxiety, and perceived stress. 

Another 16 per cent were physically stressed, with relatively higher daily blood pressure and greater caloric intake compared with other healthy pregnant women.
The majority (nearly 125) were healthy.

The study suggested that pregnant women experiencing physical and psychological stress are less likely to have a boy. 

The sex ratio in the physically and psychologically stressed groups favoured girls, with male-to-female ratios of 4:9 and 2:3, respectively.

According to the researchers, physically stressed mothers, with higher blood pressure and caloric intake, were more likely to give birth prematurely than unstressed mothers.

Psychologically stressed mothers had more birth complications than physically stressed mothers, the study said.

An estimated 30 per cent of pregnant women report psychosocial stress from job strain or related to depression and anxiety. 

Such stress has been associated with increased risk of premature birth, which is linked to higher rates of infant mortality and of physical and mental disorders, such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and anxiety, among offspring.

When social support was statistically equalised across the groups, the stress effects on pre-term birth disappeared, the study added. 

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Both mother and baby genes affect birth weight

Recent findings have discovered links between genetic code and birth weight of human beings, which explains how mothers' and babies' genes influences birth weight. 

Scientists have long known that babies who are particularly small at birth have a higher risk of birth complication, and also tend to be more prone than average weight babies to high blood pressure in adulthood.

As part of the study, the researchers looked at genetic information from 230,069 mothers, with the birth weight of one child each, in addition to genetic information and birth weights of 321,223 people across the UK Biobank and the Early Growth Genetics consortium cohorts.

A child inherits half their genes from their mother and a half from their father, and the child's own resulting genetic make-up plays a role in birth weight. The paper reveals the complex balance of how both the mothers' genes and the baby's genes can influence the baby's growth.

The researchers concluded that the direct effects of a baby's genes made a substantial contribution to birth weight. However, around 1/4 of the genetic effects identified were from the mother's genes that were not passed on to the child. Instead, these affected the baby's growth by influencing factors in the baby's environment during pregnancy, such as the amount of glucose available.

The study found that some parts of the genetic code can be linked to birth weight both directly from the child and indirectly from the mother. A number of these were seen to work together, with the mother and baby effects pushing birth weight in the same direction, while others had opposing effects, like a mother-baby tug of war.

For e.g., some of the genetic effects that raise the mother's glucose levels work to make the baby bigger because the baby produces more insulin in response which makes it grow. But when these same variations in the genetic code are inherited by the child, they restrict the amount of insulin the baby can produce, so limiting its growth and counter-acting some of the mother's growth-promoting effects.

This is the first time we've really been able to unpick the effects of both mother and baby's genes on baby weight, which is an important health indicator. It's particularly useful to know about the maternal genetic influences on the environment in the womb because these give us clues as to which factors are casual. Better understanding of the causes may mean we can help ensure babies are born at healthy weights, said one of the authors.

According to the researchers, this study highlights the value of large-scale international research collaborations.

The research involved more than 200 international researchers from 20 countries who are members of the Early Growth Genetics (EGG) Consortium.

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Children exposed to complications at birth are at risk of autism.

There is a bad news for children who were exposed to complications shortly before or during birth.

A study by Kaiser Permanente found that children who were exposed to complications shortly before or during birth, including birth asphyxia and preeclampsia, were more likely to develop autism spectrum disorder. 

The study, which was published in the American Journal of Perinatology, stated that the perinatal complications that had the highest association with ASD were birth asphyxia -- deprivation of oxygen during the birthing process -- and preeclampsia, a pregnancy complication characterized by high blood pressure and signs of damage to other organ systems. Other perinatal complications that were associated with ASD included premature separation of the placenta from the uterus, breech/transverse fetal presentation, fetal dystocia/abnormal size or position, and a prolapsed/exposed umbilical cord.

Researchers examined the health records of 594,638 children born in Kaiser Permanente hospitals in Southern California between 1991 and 2009. During this time, 6,255 of these children were diagnosed with ASD, 37 percent of whom experienced perinatal complications. Researchers found that children exposed to complications during birth were at a 10 percent increased risk of developing ASD, compared to children who did not experience perinatal complications.

That number rose to a 22 percent increased risk of developing ASD for children exposed to complications before labor began. The study also showed that children exposed to complications both before and during birth had a 44 percent greater risk of developing ASD than children who did not experience perinatal complications.

Autism spectrum disorders are a group of neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by impaired social interaction, communication deficits and a range of restricted and repetitive behavior patterns, according to the American Psychiatric Association. According to the latest estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 1 in 68 children have been identified with ASD, and the disorder is reported to occur in all racial, ethnic and socioeconomic groups. ASD is about 4.5 times more common among boys than girls.

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Protein in maternal blood may predict birth complications

A protein found in the blood of pregnant women could be used to develop tests to determine the health of their babies and aid decisions on early elective deliveries, a study reveals.
Low levels of the blood marker known as DLK1 can predict poor foetal growth and complications in pregnancy, and could be used as a non-invasive prenatal diagnostic, the study suggested.
"Measuring DLK1 levels in the mother's blood could be a reliable and non-invasive way of predicting whether there are likely to be complications, especially those that cause reduced nutrient supply to the baby," said Marika Charalambous, researcher at the Queen Mary University of London.
DLK1 is a protein that is found in high levels in the mother's blood during pregnancy, in humans and rodents. But little has been known about its source, what it does, and whether it can indicate anything about the health of a foetus.
The study published in the journal Nature Genetics initially used mice experiments that involved knocking out the gene in either the foetus or the mother, and then measuring the mother's DLK1 level to determine its source.
The researchers found that the protein originates from the embryo which means that its levels in maternal blood could provide a direct readout of the embryo's biological state.

The researchers studied 129 first-time mothers, taking measurements of DLK1 levels in their blood and recording the outcomes of their pregnancies.

They found that low DLK1 levels were associated with reduced growth of the foetus resulting from pregnancy complications, including poor blood flow through the umbilical cord.

The team then looked at how DLK1 affects the metabolism of a pregnant mouse. When fasting for 24 hours, humans start a process known as 'ketosis', which is what the Atkins diet is based on, and involves burning the energy from fat stores to keep the body functioning.

When DLK1 was inactivated in pregnant mice, their fasting response was impaired by not being able to begin ketosis. This indicated the importance of DLK1 in providing energy for the foetus and their growth, and DLK1 levels in the mother were found to be a good predictor of the mass of their offspring. 

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