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Key Takeaways
- Research from The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center suggests the placenta actively responds to chronic maternal stress with biological changes that may influence fetal brain development.
- The research team found that stress further suppressed immune activity in the placenta, which may matter for women who get viral infections during pregnancy.
- Researchers hope to test whether treatments such as probiotics could one day help block the transmission of stress.
Stress during pregnancy has been linked to preterm birth and other complications, but how it may affect the baby isn’t fully understood. Tamar Gur, MD, PhD, a maternal-fetal psychiatrist at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center, is studying the placenta as a potential link.
“Before you ever cuddle your baby and say a word to them, you’ve been communicating with them for months through the placenta,” Dr. Gur said.
Her team extended earlier findings from mice to humans. They now plan a larger study to explore whether boosting beneficial microbes that decline with stress could protect pregnancies.
