Fetus: the radar of maternal stress, a cohort study
Silvia M. Lobmaier, Alexander Mueller, Camilla Zelgert, Chao Shen,, Pei-Chun Su, Georg Schmidt, Bernd Haller, Gabriela Berg, Bibiana Fabre, Joyce, Weyrich, Hau-tieng Wu, Martin G. Frasch, Marta C. Antonelli

TL;DR
This study demonstrates that prenatal maternal stress influences fetal heart rate coupling, with higher fetal stress indices observed in fetuses of stressed mothers, indicating lasting effects of maternal stress during pregnancy.
Contribution
The paper introduces a novel fetal stress index (FSI) based on coupling analysis of maternal and fetal heart rates, validating its association with maternal stress levels.
Findings
Higher FSI in fetuses of stressed mothers
Elevated maternal hair cortisol in stressed group
Persistent fetal stress signature in late pregnancy
Abstract
Objective: We hypothesized that prenatal stress (PS) exerts lasting impact on fetal heart rate (fHR). We sought to validate the presence of such PS signature in fHR by measuring coupling between maternal HR (mHR) and fHR. Study design: Prospective observational cohort study in stressed group (SG) mothers with controls matched for gestational age during screening at third trimester using Cohen Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) questionnaire with PSS-10 equal or above 19 classified as SG. Women with PSS-10 less than 19 served as control group (CG). Setting: Klinikum rechts der Isar of the Technical University of Munich. Population: Singleton 3rd trimester pregnant women. Methods: Transabdominal fetal electrocardiograms (fECG) were recorded. We deployed a signal processing algorithm termed bivariate phase-rectified signal averaging (BPRSA) to quantify coupling between mHR and fHR resulting in a…
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