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ABSTRACT: The authors examined the association between maternal reports of child asthma attacks since birth and occurrence of elevated maternal depressive symptoms at seventeen months postpartum in the present study. The modifying role of poverty in this association was also examined. Data from n = 1,696 mother-child dyads from the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development, a birth cohort of children born in 1998, were used. Maternal depressive symptoms were measured with an abridged and validated twelve-item version of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale. Maternal reports of child asthma attacks since birth in relation to the occurrence of maternal depressive symptoms at 17 months postpartum and the potential modifying role of poverty were tested using multiple logistic regression models. When mothers reported child asthma attacks, those without elevated depressive symptoms at 5 months postpartum had lower odds of elevated depressive symptoms one year later (OR = 0.2, 95% CI: 0.1-0.7). Poverty was associated with increased odds of elevated maternal depressive symptoms (OR = 2.4, 95% CI: 1.5-3.9), without interacting with child asthma. Through this study, the authors suggest that in mothers without elevated symptoms at 5 months, reported child asthma attacks since birth did not contribute one year later to new occurrence of depressive symptoms.
Women & Health 07/2011; 51(5):461-81. · 1.00 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Pain response may be altered in infants born very preterm owing to repeated exposure to procedures in the neonatal intensive care unit. Findings have been inconsistent in studies of behavioral and cardiac responses to brief pain in preterm versus full-term infants following neonatal intensive care unit discharge. To our knowledge, cortisol reactivity to pain has not been compared in preterm and full-term infants. We examined pain reactivity to immunization in preterm and full-term infants.
Cortisol, facial behavior, and heart rate reactivity before, during, and after immunization were examined in infants born preterm at extremely low gestational age (ELGA 24 to 28 wk), very low gestational age (VLGA 29 to 32 wk), and full-term, at corrected age 4 months.
In all groups, cortisol, behavior, and heart rate increased during immunizations. Cortisol concentrations were lower in preterm ELGA and VLGA boys, compared with full-term boys. In contrast, facial and heart rate responses to immunization did not differ between preterm and full-term infants.
Although earlier reports found differences in pain processing in preterm infants earlier and later in development, the present findings indicate that pain responses, indexed by behavior and heart-rate, do not seem to differ in preterm compared with full-term infants at 4 months corrected age. Importantly, however, stress regulation seems altered in preterm male infants. As cortisol impacts development and functioning of the brain, altered stress regulation has important implications beyond pain systems.
The Clinical journal of pain 10/2010; 26(8):698-704. · 3.01 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: There is evidence that the developmental trajectory of cortisol secretion in preterm infants is altered, with elevated basal cortisol levels observed postnatally through at least 18 months corrected age (CA). This alteration is possibly due to neonatal pain-related stress. High cortisol levels might contribute to greater risk of impaired neurodevelopment. Since maternal factors are important for the regulation of infant stress responses, we investigated relationships between infant (neonatal pain-related stress, attention, cortisol) and maternal (stress, interactive behaviors) factors at age 8 months CA. We found that interactive maternal behaviors buffered the relationship between high neonatal pain-related stress exposure and poorer focused attention in mothers who self-reported low concurrent stress. Furthermore, in preterm infants exposed to high concurrent maternal stress and overwhelming interactive maternal behaviors, higher basal cortisol levels were associated with poor focused attention. Overall, these findings suggest that maternal factors can influence the cognitive resilience at 8 months of preterm infants exposed to early life stress.
Developmental Psychobiology 04/2007; 49(2):150-64. · 2.98 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Daily stress and sleep deprivation can influence the diurnal pattern of cortisol, which normally consists of high morning levels and a gradual decline throughout the day. While most individuals have consistent declining cortisol concentrations over days, others display either flat or inconsistent profiles. Postpartum mothers experience considerable home demands and sleep deprivation, yet, breastfeeding mothers perceive lower stress and reduced negative mood states compared to bottlefeeders. On the other hand, multiparity (having more than one child) is associated with reduced steepness in diurnal cortisol decline. Interestingly, no study to date has investigated the diurnal cortisol pattern and its stability across days in postpartum women as a function of their choice of infant feeding and parity. In this study, we measured salivary cortisol at four different time points during the day, on two non-consecutive days in first-time (primiparous) and second-time (multiparous) mothers at 5-20 weeks postpartum who were exclusively breastfeeding or bottlefeeding, and in non-postpartum mothers of young children (1-6 years). Among multiparous mothers, we found that cortisol levels in those who were bottlefeeding were higher than in breastfeeding mothers at both awakening and 1600 h. This effect remained significant after controlling for individual differences related to infant feeding choice, such as estradiol levels, education and income. No effect of infant feeding choice on cortisol concentrations was observed in primiparous mothers. While a consistent decline across days was common, some mothers presented a flat or inconsistent profile, a profile that was not associated with infant feeding choice or parity. Importantly, mothers with consistent declining profiles had the highest household income. Our findings suggest that although breastfeeding might promote a tighter regulation of diurnal basal cortisol secretion, in particular for multiparous mothers who are likely to be exposed to greater home demands and maternal responsibilities, some aspects of socioeconomic status such as income can also play a significant role in the stability of diurnal cortisol secretion across days.
Psychoneuroendocrinology 09/2006; 31(7):812-24. · 5.81 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: An acute breastfeeding stimulus is generally followed by a transient decrease in cortisol levels in mothers. It is currently not clear whether breastfeeding upon waking up would affect the awakening cortisol response (ACR), a significant increase in salivary cortisol levels occurring within 30-45 min after awakening. In the present study, we measured the amplitude and stability of the ACR in response to infant feeding in women who were exclusively bottle-feeding (n = 16), or breastfeeding (n = 13) or feeding their child solid food (n = 12). The results show that the type of infant feeding did not affect the amplitude and stability of the ACR. Given that the ACR has been reported to reflect physical and psychological well-being, our finding that infant feeding upon waking up might not be a confounding factor in ACR studies on the postpartum population represents valuable methodological information.
Stress 10/2005; 8(3):213-6. · 2.48 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Reduced hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) responses to stress during the last week of pregnancy and lactation have been consistently observed in rat studies. Several contributing factors have been proposed for this phenomenon in lactation, including the suckling stimulus from the pups, hormones (oxytocin and prolactin) and opioids, a decrease in the ability of noradrenaline to potentiate hypothalamic responses and changes in pituitary responsiveness to ACTH secretagogues (AVP and CRF). In contrast to this vast literature using the rat model, only few studies have addressed this issue in the human population. The consensus is that women engaging in breastfeeding activities exhibit reduced anxiety, although the reductions in neuroendocrine and autonomic responses to stressors are variable, in part because of the different nature of the stressors used. Further work is required to investigate how additional factors, such as maternal parity or emotional salience of the stressor can affect stress responsiveness in postpartum women. Here, we review first the findings regarding stress responsiveness during lactation in both rat and human studies, and then discuss potential research avenues and methodological issues that could be the lead to future research protocols in human subjects. Knowing the reciprocal relationship in the mother-infant dyad, it is clear that investigation of the mechanisms regulating stress responses and mental health in postpartum mothers can only be beneficial to the development of the infant.
Stress 04/2005; 8(1):19-34. · 2.48 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: In this paper, we summarize the data obtained in our laboratory showing the effects of glucocorticoids on human cognitive function in older adults, young adults and children. We first present data obtained in the aged human population which showed that long-term exposure to high endogenous levels of glucocorticoids is associated with both memory impairments and a 14% smaller volume of the hippocampus. We then report on studies showing that in older adults with moderate levels of glucocorticoids, memory performance can be acutely modulated by pharmacological manipulations of glucocorticoids. In young adults, we present data obtained in our laboratory showing that cognitive processing sustained by the frontal lobes is also sensitive to acute increases of glucocorticoids. We also summarize studies showing that just as in older adults, memory performance in young adults can be acutely modulated by pharmacological manipulations of glucocorticoids. We then present a study in which we showed a differential involvement of adrenergic and glucocorticoid hormones for short- and long-term memory of neutral and emotional information. In the last section of the paper, we present data obtained in a population of young children and teenagers from low and high socioeconomic status (SES), where we showed that children from low SES present significantly higher levels of basal cortisol when compared to children from high SES. We then present new data obtained in this population showing that children and teenagers from low and high SES do not process the plausibility of positive and negative attributes in the same way. Children from low SES tended to process positive and negative attributes on a more negative note than children from high SES, and this type of processing was significantly related to basal cortisol at age 10, 12 and 14. Altogether, the results of these studies show that both bottom-up (effects of glucocorticoids on cognitive function), and top-down (effects of cognitive processing on glucocorticoid secretion) effects exist in the human population.
Psychoneuroendocrinology 04/2005; 30(3):225-42. · 5.81 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Background: Income, education, being an immigrant and residential neighbourhood characteristics are linked to depressive symptoms. To our knowledge, no longitudinal study has examined the joint influence of demographic and neighbourhood characteristics on maternal depressive symptoms.Objective: To examine the influence of demographic and neighbourhood characteristics on trajectories of maternal depressive symptoms from child age 1.5 to 7 years, in Québec, Canada. METHODS: 1611 mothers from the Québec Longitudinal Study on Child Development, seen regularly since child birth (1998). Maternal depressive symptoms (CES-D), income, and residential neighbourhood characteristics (neighbourhood poverty, unemployment and quality of nearest park) were measured for mothers at child ages 1.5, 3.5, 5 and 7 years. Analyses of the influence of income and neighbourhood characteristics on depression scores (overall trajectory and at each time point) were performed with PROCTRAJ in SAS.Results: Over the 6-year period, 42.6% of mothers showed likelihood of a trajectory of low depressive symptoms, while 46.5% and 10.9% showed likelihood of trajectories of minor and elevated depressive symptoms respectively. Prior elevated maternal depressive symptoms at child age 5 months and being an immigrant mother were associated with a greater likelihood of minor (OR= 6.40 CI 3.40-12.37, p=0.001; OR=2.44 CI=1.09-5.48, p=0.01respectively) or elevated (OR=8.18, CI=1.88-22.88, p=0.005; OR=5.66 CI=1.41-22.65, p=0.01 respectively) depressive symptoms. High perception of neighbourhood safety (top quartile) was associated with lesser likelihood of a trajectory of elevated depressive symptoms (OR=0.12, CI=0.03-0.49, p=0.001). Living near a park with greater green space was associated with lesser likelihood of a trajectory of minor depressive symptoms (OR=0.38 CI=0.18-0.80, p=0.02).Implications: These results suggest that demographic and neighbourhood factors are associated with maternal depressive symptoms. Further research will evaluate the link between trajectories of maternal depressive symptoms and cortisol profiles as such relations vary according to individual and neighbourhood factors.During her doctoral studies, Mai Thanh Tu examined the influences of breastfeeding and low income on biological stress pathways in mothers of healthy infants. After studying stress regulation in preterm infants, Mai is now working on maternal mental health and social factors such as characteristics of the residential neighbourhood, living in poverty conditions and caring for a sick child. Mai is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine at Universite de Montreal, and is funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research and the NARSAD foundation.
Health over the Life Course Conference.
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ABSTRACT: Early childhood poverty is associated with adult chronic diseases. The objectives of this study were to examine patterns of exposure to poverty during the first 10 years of life in the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development (QLSCD) cohort according to three measures of poverty and to explore family characteristics associated with different poverty exposures.
Data from 1,334 participants from the QLSCD were collected annually at home from ages 5 months through 10 years. Household income (previous 12 months) and sources of income were recorded at each data round. Poverty status was operationalized as 1) living below the low income cut-off of Statistics Canada, 2) receiving social welfare and 3) being in the lowest quintile of socio-economic status. We plotted trends in the prevalence of child poverty over time. We used latent class growth modelling to identify subgroups with similar poverty trajectories. Duration of poverty according to each measure was computed separately for early childhood, middle childhood, and the entire 10 years of life.
Four trajectories of poverty were identified: stable poor, decreasing likelihood, increasing likelihood, and never poor. The three measures of poverty do not cover the same population, yet the characteristics of those identified as poor are similar. Children of non-European, immigrant mothers were most likely to be poor, and there was a higher likelihood of children from single-parent families to live in chronic poverty during the first 10 years.
A large proportion of children are exposed to poverty before 10 years of age. More effective public policies could reduce child poverty.
Canadian journal of public health. Revue canadienne de santé publique 103(4):e270-6. · 1.02 Impact Factor
