Prenatal stress
Encyclopedia
Prenatal stress is exposure of an expectant mother
to distress
, which can be caused by stressful life events or by environmental hardships. The resulting changes to the mother's hormonal
and immune system
may harm the fetus's (and after birth, the infant's) immune function and brain development.
Pregnancy
Pregnancy refers to the fertilization and development of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, in a woman's uterus. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets...
to distress
Stress (medicine)
Stress is a term in psychology and biology, borrowed from physics and engineering and first used in the biological context in the 1930s, which has in more recent decades become commonly used in popular parlance...
, which can be caused by stressful life events or by environmental hardships. The resulting changes to the mother's hormonal
Endocrine system
In physiology, the endocrine system is a system of glands, each of which secretes a type of hormone directly into the bloodstream to regulate the body. The endocrine system is in contrast to the exocrine system, which secretes its chemicals using ducts. It derives from the Greek words "endo"...
and immune system
Immune system
An immune system is a system of biological structures and processes within an organism that protects against disease by identifying and killing pathogens and tumor cells. It detects a wide variety of agents, from viruses to parasitic worms, and needs to distinguish them from the organism's own...
may harm the fetus's (and after birth, the infant's) immune function and brain development.