Impact of Prenatal Stress on Neurobiological Markers of Stress Reactivity and Psychopathology Risk in Early Childhood

Exposure to prenatal stress increases children’s risk for developing mental health problems and this risk persists into adulthood. Underlying neurobiological mechanisms of how prenatal stress confers risk for development of psychopathology are not well understood. Prior human and animal research suggests prenatal stress alters developmental systems that support stress and emotion regulation in offspring, which may underlie vulnerability to psychopathology. To contribute to understanding, this study examines the impact of prenatal stress on postnatal offspring biobehavioral outcomes. In a quasi-experimental design, we examined prospective associations between prenatal maternal stress (subjective distress and disaster-related objective hardship), physiological stress reactivity, and parent-reported behavioral risk once offspring reached toddlerhood. Dyads (n = 47) completed follow-up assessments to collect autonomic nervous system reactivity (respiratory sinus arrythmia, RSA; heart rate, HR) during a maternal separation task and behavioral measures. Increased subjective prenatal stress and child HR reactivity were associated with increased child behavior problems at 24 months. Objective prenatal stress was not related to any outcomes examined in the study. Findings suggest that subjective prenatal stress is an important predictor of offspring behavioral risk and further research is needed to explore relations with stress reactivity. This work addresses limitations of prior research by leveraging an existing prospective, longitudinal, study of women exposed to an independent stressor during pregnancy (Hurricane Harvey) and incorporated multiple indices of the autonomic nervous system.