Fetal and birth experiences: Proximate effects, developmental consequences, epigenetic legacies

Abstract

Understanding how prenatal experience shapes function is fundamental knowledge with profound implications for developmental research and clinical approaches. In this chapter, we review four conceptual and/or mechanistic advances that have influenced our empirical studies of fetal and perinatal rats. These are: (1) Developmental Origins of Adult Disease, (2) Epigenesis and the Identification of Epigenetic Mechanisms, (3) Gottlieb’s Articulation of Experience as Mechanism, and (4) Ontogenetic Adaptation. We describe our analyses showing that sensory stimulation in utero and during birth help the newborn achieve important postpartum milestones. Our psychobiological approach is ‘ecologically’ oriented which, for fetal research, implies consideration of the adaptive significance of behavior within the uterine habitat. Thus, we made detailed quantifications of natural intrauterine stimuli arising from the mother and the environment of the womb and then modeled these sensory events in the laboratory. Our findings indicate that, during pregnancy and parturition, the mother’s behavior and physiology generate copious episodes of stimulation that are detectable by the fetus and alter sensory function. The absence of these natural forms of sensory input can impede the perinatal expression of adaptive responses, including vital postpartum milestones (i.e., pulmonary respiration and sucking responses). Further, we identified perinatal catecholamine release as a putative mechanism underlying these effects. These new views of proximate, long-term, and potential epigenetic effects of intrauterine and birth stimulation in an animal model can contribute to improving human clinical outcomes during postpartum life and beyond.