Science

Judi Lynn

(160,542 posts) Tue Sep 18, 2018, 12:55 AM Sep 2018

Women who experienced higher levels of trauma gave birth to significantly smaller male babies

18-SEP-2018

THE MOUNT SINAI HOSPITAL / MOUNT SINAI SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

In the first study of its kind, researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have found significantly lower birth weights in male infants--an average decrease of 38 grams, or approximately 1.3 ounces--born to women who had been exposed to trauma at some point in their lives and who secreted higher levels of cortisol, a hormone related to stress, in late pregnancy.

The study will be published online on Tuesday, September 18, at 12:01 am EDT in The Journal of Pediatrics.

Only women who had both a history of trauma and higher levels of cortisol secretion experienced lower birth weights; trauma alone was not sufficient. The association was also only seen among male babies. This is consistent with other data that shows that male fetuses are more susceptible to effects of maternal stress on intrauterine growth.

The Programming of Intergenerational Stress Mechanisms (PRISM) study provided data for the research. Information was gathered from 314 pregnant women receiving prenatal care and their children. The women provided information on their medical history and exposure to traumatic and stressful events using the Life Stressor Checklist-Revised (LSC-R), a commonly used tool to measure lifetime exposure to stressful events particularly relevant to women. At delivery, the subjects provided hair samples which were used to measure cortisol. Birth weight and sex of the infant were recorded.

More:
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-09/tmsh-wwe091218.php

1 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

Women who experienced higher levels of trauma gave birth to significantly smaller male babies (Original Post) Judi Lynn Sep 2018 OP

Seems very plausible this is natural selection at work in some form ... mr_lebowski Sep 2018 #1

mr_lebowski

(33,643 posts)

1. Seems very plausible this is natural selection at work in some form ...

Reply to Judi Lynn (Original post)

Tue Sep 18, 2018, 04:16 AM

Sep 2018

Though it only affecting one gender is definitely very interesting. If it were both genders the explanation would seem simple ... at a really basic level, smaller babies would require less nourishment in their early days, a female under stress would be more likely to succeed in raising them successfully if they needed less 'energy input' from her.

But the 'male only' aspect is, while I'm sure still related to evolution, a very interesting wrinkle in the situation. Wonder if we'll ever figure out why it is, exactly?

Could be that males are being favored by making them smaller at first, hence more likely to survive in scare energy circumstances ... since on average a male in the wild statistically is likely to father more young (and do so across a wider expanse) than a female would mother, this may be an overall 'survival of the genes' strategy. Talking about our close cousins here, not, like, fish or something.

Reply to this discussion