Browsing by Author "Poutanen, Johanna"

Prenatal conditions alter fetal development in ways that may have long-term effects on the child's later physical and psychological development and health. According to the fetal programming hypothesis, the environment of the uterus may permanently affect the structure and operation of the organs of the fetus as well as its phenotype. One explanation for the disturbance in fetal development is the glucocorticoid hypothesis, which assumes that the increased glucocorticoid content in the mother's system during pregnancy has a negative effect on fetal development. According to research, early exposure to glucocorticoids may have a lasting effect on the offspring's neural development, and these effects may manifest in various ways in the child's development. The hypothesis states that one adverse factor to fetal development is the mother's prenatal depression, as depression is associated with increased amounts of glucocorticoid. Prenatal depression is a relatively common condition, but its effects on fetal development have not been widely studied and are not very thoroughly known. Research has indicated that prenatal depression has a connection to various developmental problems in the child, such as psychological disorders and impaired cognitive development. Prenatal depression has also been found to have a connection to a more negative (e.g. more timid) temperament in the child. The goal of this thesis is to study the connections between the mother's prenatal depression and the child's temperamental traits. The research material consists of 2 445 mothers, whose symptoms were charted a total of 14 times during the entire pregnancy and afterwards. In addition, the mothers assessed their child's temperament at the age of approximately six months. Based on the results obtained, a higher incidence of symptoms of depression strongly predicts a more negative affectivity in the child. In addition, symptoms of prenatal depression predict a lower orienting/regulation and a lower surgency/extraversion. The reasons for these links have not so far been explained, but a possible explanation is the damage in the early development of the central nervous system of the fetus caused by the mother's high prenatal glucocorticoid content. Especially damage in the hippocampus and amygdala could explain the child's elevated negative affectivity and, conversely, lower surgency/extraversion.