Interactive relations between maternal prenatal stress, fetal brain connectivity, and gestational age at delivery

Studies reporting significant associations between maternal prenatal stress and child outcomes are frequently confounded by correlates of prenatal stress that influence the postnatal rearing environment. The major objective of this study is to identify whether maternal prenatal stress is associated with variation in human brain functional connectivity prior to birth. We utilized fetal fMRI in 118 fetuses [48 female; mean age 32.9 weeks (SD = 3.87)] to evaluate this association and further addressed whether fetal neural differences were related to maternal health behaviors, social support, or birth outcomes. Community detection was used to empirically define networks and enrichment was used to isolate differential within- or between-network connectivity effects. Significance for chi(2) enrichment was determined by randomly permuting the subject pairing of fetal brain connectivity and maternal stress values 10,000 times. Mixtures modelling was used to test whether fetal neural differences were related to maternal health behaviors, social support, or birth outcomes. Increased maternal prenatal negative affect/stress was associated with alterations in fetal frontoparietal, striatal, and temporoparietal connectivity (beta = 0.82, p < 0.001). Follow-up analysis demonstrated that these associations were stronger in women with better health behaviors, more positive interpersonal support, and lower overall stress (beta = 0.16, p = 0.02). Additionally, magnitude of stress-related differences in neural connectivity was marginally correlated with younger gestational age at delivery (beta = -0.18, p = 0.05). This is the first evidence that negative affect/stress during pregnancy is reflected in functional network differences in the human brain in utero, and also provides information about how positive interpersonal and health behaviors could mitigate prenatal brain programming.

Automated summary

Maternal prenatal stress is associated with variations in fetal brain functional connectivity, with stronger effects observed in women with better health behaviors, positive interpersonal support, and lower overall stress. Additionally, the differences in neural connectivity due to stress are marginally correlated with younger gestational age at delivery. This study provides the first evidence of how negative affect and stress during pregnancy can impact fetal brain programming.