Maternal prenatal cortisol trajectories predict accelerated growth in infancy.

ABSTRACT: Higher maternal cortisol in pregnancy has been linked to childhood obesity. Much of the previous research has been limited in that cortisol in pregnancy is only measured at one time-point, precluding the ability to examine critical timing effects of prenatal maternal cortisol. To fill this gap, this longitudinal study measured maternal plasma cortisol at 15, 19, 25, and 31 weeks of pregnancy, and assessed infant body mass index percentile (BMIP)¹ at birth, 3, 6, 12, and 24 months in 189 mother-infant pairs. Three distinct patterns of maternal cortisol in pregnancy (typical, steep, and flat trajectories) were identified using general growth mixture modeling (GGMM)² and then used to predict child growth patterns using multilevel modeling. Infants of mothers who had flat

SUBMITTER: Hahn-Holbrook J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10710294 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature