Maternal nutrition and prenatal growth: Experimental studies of effects of maternal undernutrition on fetal and placental growth

Abstract

Intrauterine development is characterized by proliferative cell growth in all tissues. As such, it is particularly vulnerable to adverse stimuli, such as malnutrition, which could disturb the normal development patterns leading to deficits in cell number in the placenta and organs of the fetus. Indeed evidence exists in both the rat and the human that this is the case. Additionally, prenatal malnutrition may predispose the animal to particularly severe consequences if exposed to postnatal malnutrition as well. Studies of DNA polymerase activity after malnutrition suggest that one way in which this stimulus interferes with proliferative cell growth may be by reducing the level of this enzyme's activity.