Journal
PEDIATRICS
Volume 132, Issue 5, Pages E1333-E1340Publisher
AMER ACAD PEDIATRICS
DOI: 10.1542/peds.2013-1178
Keywords
stress; children; mother; cortisol; hair; health disparities
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Funding
- Swedish Child Diabetes Foundation (Barndiabetesfonden)
- Research Council of Southeast Sweden [FORSS-87771, FORSS-36321]
- Swedish Medical Research Council (MRF) [VR: K99-72X-11242-05A]
- JDRF Wallenberg Foundation [K 98-99D-12813-01A]
- County Council of Ostergotland, ALF project grant, Linkoping, Sweden
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OBJECTIVE: To investigate cortisol concentrations in hair as biomarker of prolonged stress in young children and their mothers and the relation to perinatal and sociodemographic factors. METHODS: Prospective cohort study of 100 All Babies In Southeast Sweden study participants with repeated measures at 1, 3, 5, and 8 years and their mothers during pregnancy. Prolonged stress levels were assessed through cortisol in hair. A questionnaire covered perinatal and sociodemographic factors during the child's first year of life. RESULTS: Maternal hair cortisol during the second and third trimester and child hair cortisol at year 1 and 3 correlated. Child cortisol in hair levels decreased over time and correlated to each succeeding age, between years 1 and 3 (r = 0.30, P = .002), 3 and 5 (r = 0.39, P < .001), and 5 and 8 (r = 0.44, P < .001). Repeated measures gave a significant linear association over time (P < .001). There was an association between high levels of hair cortisol and birth weight (beta = .224, P = .020), nonappropriate size for gestational age (beta = .231, P = .017), and living in an apartment compared with a house (beta = .200, P = .049). In addition, we found high levels of cortisol in hair related to other factors associated with psychosocial stress exposure. CONCLUSIONS: Correlation between hair cortisol levels in mothers and their children suggests a heritable trait or maternal calibration of the child's hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis. Cortisol output gradually stabilizes and seems to have a stable trait. Cortisol concentration in hair has the potential to become a biomarker of prolonged stress, especially applicable as a noninvasive method when studying how stress influences children's health.
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