Gerry Giesbrecht, PhD, a psychologist and member of the University\u2019s Alberta Children\u2019s Hospital Research Institute for Child and Maternal Health, was lead author on a study that analyzed how levels of the stress hormone cortisol change when mood changes in pregnant women<\/strong>. While cortisol levels naturally fluctuate over the course of the day, the study found that as negative mood increases, cortisol levels increase as well<\/strong>.<\/p>\n These findings highlight the need to better understand how and to what extent the fetus shares its mother\u2019s experience.<\/p>\n \u201cIt goes without saying that depression or anxiety affects the pregnant mom but we have mostly paid attention to these effects during the post-partum period. But knowing that mood changes a woman\u2019s physiology in ways that have implications for the fetus tells us that health-care providers need to start paying attention to mood during pregnancy,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Cortisol is a hormone that occurs naturally in the body in both males and females. While its primary roles are to manage blood sugar levels, to suppress the immune system and to aid in the metabolism of specific nutrients, it also plays a unique role during pregnancy. Cortisol levels increase greatly during the final gestational weeks to ensure the baby\u2019s lungs are prepared for birth. It is also vital for fetal brain development<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u201cThis information suggests that too little of the hormone could have developmental consequences,\u201d he says. \u201cIt also suggests that too much of the hormone could have developmental consequences. Now that we know changing mood has a large enough consequence on cortisol that it could affect the fetus, we can start to look at how to use maternal mood to achieve good developmental outcomes for the fetus.\u201d<\/p>\n Giesbrecht says while they don\u2019t currently know what the consequences are when exposed to too much of the hormone, the study has paved the way for further research on the topic.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have some sense of what happens when a fetus is exposed to too much cortisol, but we don\u2019t have a lot of evidence as yet,\u201d he says. Fiona McCord participated in the study while pregnant with her son. She says her participation came from her desire to help figure out the road map to a happy and healthy baby.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile pregnant you\u2019re constantly evaluating all your actions and are willing to do whatever it takes to ensure your baby arrives happy and healthy,\u201d she says. \u201cI thought by participating it might help someone like me in a few years who just wanted to make the right choices for her baby.\u201d<\/p>\n The study followed 83 women, who were between six and 37 weeks gestation, by measuring cortisol levels in their saliva. Saliva collection was done at home over three consecutive days on a schedule that included upon waking, shortly after waking up and at various times throughout the day. The women completed a mood questionnaire at the time of each collection. To ensure no outside factors affected cortisol levels, participants were asked to refrain from consuming certain food products and refrain from certain activities prior to collection. Over 1,000 saliva samples were analyzed.<\/p>\n The study was funded by Alberta Innovates?Health Solutions and the Alberta Children\u2019s Hospital Research Institute for Child and Maternal Health.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the University of Calgary press release via MedicalXPress: While pregnant, women pay particular attention to factors such as diet and exercise to ensure their babies are born healthy and… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[100,31,62],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1271"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1271"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1272,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1271\/revisions\/1272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/images\/blogpics\/Pregnancy.jpg\" "\\"pregnancy\\"")
While pregnant, women pay particular attention to factors such as diet and exercise to ensure their babies are born healthy and develop normally. New research from the University of Calgary\u2019s Faculty of Medicine suggests another factor women should pay particular attention to while pregnant?their mood. The findings were published in this month\u2019s issue of Psychoneuroendocrinology<\/em>.<\/p>\n