Fetal programming

Life in Womb Holds Clues to Risk Decades Later

By Todd Neale, Senior Staff Writer, MedPage Today Published: December 04, 2011 Reviewed by Robert Jasmer, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco. Action Points   Factors that occur during fetal development may help identify offspring -- particularly females -- who are susceptible to the co-occurrence of major depression and cardiovascular disease in mid-life, researchers found. Women exposed to preeclampsia and fetal growth restriction in the womb had deficits in the regions of the brain associated with stress response, mood, and cardiac function -- the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. Factors that occur during fetal development may help identify offspring -- particularly females -- who are susceptible to the co-occurrence of major depression and cardiovascular disease in mid-life, researchers found. Women in their late 40s whose fetal growth was restricted and whose mother developed preeclampsia were significantly more likely than their male counterparts to have both major depression and signs of cardiac dysfunction (RR 1.38,P<0.01), according to Jill Goldstein, PhD, of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.