Prenatal Stress, Nutrition, and Child Development

Many studies have shown that exposure to maternal stress and poor maternal diet during gestation are risk factors for impaired brain development. Even subtle impairments in brain development have long-lasting effects on children, including their success in school and their success as adults in social relationships, career, and ability to generate income. Children are not, however, equally affected by prenatal exposure to stress and nutrition. Some children exposed to prenatal stress do not seem to suffer negative effects. One reason for this may be that nutrition can change the way that the prenatal stress signals get passed on to the developing fetus. Specifically, nutrients like choline and long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids may reduce the amount of ‘stress signals’, like cortisol, that are passed on to the fetus when a pregnant women becomes stressed. This idea offers the exciting possibility that specific nutrients can be used to prevent or treat the negative effects of exposure to maternal stress during pregnancy.

We are investigating the role of prenatal nutrition as a protective factor that prevents or reduces the negative effects of maternal stress and cortisol on children’s own stress response systems and their neurodevelopment. Our goal is to generate new insights into the relationships among maternal psychological stress and nutrition in the prenatal period that will inform prevention and intervention programs and policies to improve child health.