Maternal prenatal life events increase risk for atopic disorders in children

Prenatal stress exposure may affect maternal immune adaptation to pregnancy and fetal immune development, predisposing the child to atopic diseases. Significant levels of prenatal maternal anxiety and/or exposure to bereavement during pregnancy have been associated with the development of atopic diseases in offspring, yet insights on the effect of multiple, common prenatal stressors are rare. Moreover, it is also unclear if prenatal stress challenge modifies the risk for atopic diseases in the context of parental atopy.We tested whether women’s experiences of negative prenatal life events during the first or second half of pregnancy predicted the risk of developing atopic disorders in their children, and whether parental atopy moderated this association.Using multivariable logistic regression we calculated the odds of a child having asthma, eczema and/or allergic rhinitis at ages 6 or 14 years associated with maternal prenatal exposure to negative life events in a sample of 1587 children from the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study.After adjusting for confounding variables, the likelihood of asthma, allergic rhinitis or eczema at age 14 was significantly increased in the children of mothers who had experienced negative life events during the second half of gestation, suggesting a critical period of fetal immune development. The association between prenatal stress and increased risk for asthma was stronger in children of non-asthmatic compared to asthmatic mothers.