Study Finds Link Between Maternal Stress and Asthma in Offspring

Stress during pregnancy can increase asthma risk in the offspring, a new study states.

Pregnant women are asked to keep calm and reduce their anxiety levels to lower risk of complications during pregnancy. A latest study, conducted by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, has shown that in pregnant mice, even a single bout of stress leads to a higher risk of asthma in the offspring.

This isn't the first time that stress has been linked to asthma. A recent study had found that mothers who suffer from stressful events such as a divorce, death of a loved one or job loss tend to have a higher risk of having children with asthma or eczema.

Glucocorticoids (GC) and their synthetic versions - prednisone, dexamethasone and hydrocortisone are used to treat chronic inflammation.

The researchers said that the same GCs can lead to an increase in allergic responses and cause chronic stress. GCs are already elevated during pregnancy and so, even a single event of stress can significantly increase levels of these hormones, leading to long-term health damage for the offspring.

For the study, researchers exposed one group of pregnant mice to stress and the second to dexamethasone, which mimicked the effects of stressful event. A third group was given metyrapone, which inhibits the effect of stress hormone whereas the fourth group got no such exposure.

The researchers found that maternal stress can increase asthma risk in mice. After the delivery, researchers exposed all the mice pups to allergens - substances that can cause allergic reaction.

"Only the offspring of stressed mothers demonstrated increased asthma susceptibility compared with nonstressed mothers. We also demonstrated that a single episode of stress significantly elevated maternal stress hormone levels. These results indicate that maternal stress can play a role in the initiation of asthma by increasing asthma susceptibility in offspring," researchers said, according to a news release.

The study was conducted by Robert Lim, Alexey V. Fedulov and Lester Kobzik and is published in the journal American Journal of Physiology - Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology.

Previous research has shown that stress might cause infertility in women.