Posts tagged pregnancy
Articles and news from the latest research reports.
Antidepressant use in pregnancy may be associated with structural changes in the infant brain
A new study by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers found that children of depressed mothers treated with a group of antidepressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) during pregnancy were more likely to develop Chiari type 1 malformations than were children of mothers with no history of depression.
However, the researchers cautioned, doctors treating pregnant women for depression should not change their prescribing practices based on the results of this study.
“Our results can be interpreted two ways,” said Rebecca Knickmeyer, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry in the UNC School of Medicine and lead author of the study published May 19 in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. “Either SSRIs increase risk for Chiari type 1 malformations, or other factors associated with SSRI treatment during pregnancy, such as severity of depression itself, increase risk. Additional research into the effects of depression during pregnancy, with and without antidepressant treatment is urgently needed.”
A Chiari type 1 malformation is a condition in which brain tissue in the cerebellum (a part of the brain that controls balance, motor systems, and some cognitive functions) extends into the spinal canal. About 5 percent of children have a Chiari type 1 malformation. Most do not have any problems because of it, but some develop symptoms such as headache and balance problems. In severe cases surgery may be necessary.
The study’s results are based on an analysis of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scans done on four groups of children at UNC Hospitals. Thirty-three children whose mothers were diagnosed with depression and took SSRI antidepressant medications, such as sertraline and fluoxetine, were compared to 66 children whose mothers had no history of depression. In addition, 30 children whose mothers were diagnosed with depression but did not take SSRIs were compared to 60 children whose mothers had no history of depression.
Eighteen percent of the children whose mothers took SSRIs during pregnancy had Chiari type 1 malformations, compared to 3 percent among children whose mothers had no history of depression. The rate of Chiari type 1 malformations was highest in children whose mothers reported a family history of depression in addition to treatment with SSRIs during pregnancy, suggesting an important role for genes as well as environment. Duration of SSRI exposure and SSRI exposure at conception also appeared to increase risk.
“These results raise many interesting questions, and there are many things we still don’t know,” said study co-author Samantha Meltzer-Brody, MD, MPH, associate professor of psychiatry in the UNC School of Medicine and director of UNC’s Perinatal Psychiatry Program. “For example, we do not know how many of these children will go on to develop symptoms of Chiari type 1 malformations. What we do know is that untreated depression can be very harmful for women and their babies, and so we strongly encourage pregnant women who are being treated for depression to continue with their treatment,” she said.
Knickmeyer said that a decision to use antidepressants during pregnancy must be based on the balance between risks and benefits and that it is critical that health care providers and the public get accurate information on this topic. She also noted that a diagnosis of Chiari Type 1 is often delayed due to the non-specific nature of the symptoms. Thus, it may be valuable for families in this situation to know about the results of this study.
In addition, “Chiari type 1 malformations are somewhat common, but very little is known about what causes them,” said study co-author J. Keith Smith, MD, PhD, professor and vice chair of clinical research in UNC’s Department of Radiology. “Studies like this could give us new insight into that question.”
Preparing for parenthood: Study finds pregnant women show increased activity in right side of brain
Pregnant women show increased activity in the area of the brain related to emotional skills as they prepare to bond with their babies, according to a new study by scientists at Royal Holloway, University of London.
The research, which will be presented at the British Psychological Society’s annual conference today (Wednesday 7 May), found that pregnant women use the right side of their brain more than new mothers do when they look at faces with emotive expressions.
“Our findings give us a significant insight into the ‘baby brain’ phenomenon that makes a woman more sensitive during the child bearing process”, said Dr Victoria Bourne, from the Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway. “The results suggest that during pregnancy, there are changes in how the brain processes facial emotions that ensure that mothers are neurologically prepared to bond with their babies at birth.”
Researcher examined the neuropsychological activity of 39 pregnant women and new mothers as they looked at images of adult and baby faces with either positive or negative expressions. The results showed that pregnant women used the right side of their brain more than new mothers, particularly when processing positive emotions.
The study used the chimeric faces test, which uses images made of one half of a neutral face combined with one half of an emotive face to see which side of the participants’ brain is used to process positive and negative emotions.
Dr Bourne said: “We know from previous research that pregnant women and new mothers are more sensitive to emotional expressions, particularly when looking at babies’ faces. We also know that new mothers who demonstrate symptoms of post-natal depression sometimes interpret their baby’s emotional expressions as more negative than they really are.
“Discovering the neuropsychological processes that may underpin these changes is a key step towards understanding how they might influence a mother’s bonding with her baby.”
(Source: alphagalileo.org)
DHA during pregnancy does not appear to improve cognitive outcomes for children
Although there are recommendations for pregnant women to increase their intake of the omega-3 fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) to improve fetal brain development, a randomized trial finds that prenatal DHA supplementation did not result in improved cognitive, problem-solving or language abilities for children at four years of age, according to the study in the May 7 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on child health. This issue is being released early to coincide with the Pediatric Academic Societies Annual Meeting.
Maria Makrides, B.Sc., B.N.D., Ph.D., of the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute, Adelaide, Australia and colleagues conducted longer-term follow-up from a previously published study in which pregnant women received 800 mg/d of DHA or placebo. In the initial study, the researchers found that average cognitive, language, and motor scores did not differ between children at 18 months of age. For the follow-up study, outcomes were assessed at 4 years, a time point when any subtle effects on development should have emerged and can be more reliably assessed.
The majority (91.9 percent) of eligible families (DHA group, n = 313; control group, n = 333) participated in the follow-up. The authors found that measures of cognition, the ability to perform complex mental processing, language, and executive functioning (such as memory, reasoning, problem solving) did not differ significantly between groups.
"Our data do not support prenatal DHA supplementation to enhance early childhood development."
(Image: Shutterstock)
Researchers Find Association Between SSRI Use During Pregnancy and Autism and Developmental Delays in Boys
In a study of nearly 1,000 mother-child pairs, researchers from the Bloomberg School of Public health found that prenatal exposure to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a frequently prescribed treatment for depression, anxiety and other disorders, was associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and developmental delays (DD) in boys. The study, published in the online edition of Pediatrics, analyzed data from large samples of ASD and DD cases, and population-based controls, where a uniform protocol was implemented to confirm ASD and DD diagnoses by trained clinicians using validated standardized instruments.
The study included 966 mother-child pairs from the Childhood Autism Risks from Genetics and the Environment (CHARGE) Study, a population-based case-control study based at the University of California at Davis’ MIND Institute. The researchers broke the data into three groups: Those diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), those with developmental delays (DD) and those with typical development (TD). The children ranged in ages two to five. A majority of the children were boys – 82.5% in the ASD group were boys, 65.6% in the DD group were boys and 85.6% in the TD were boys. While the study included girls, the substantially stronger effect in boys alone suggests possible gender difference in the effect of prenatal SSRI exposure.
“We found prenatal SSRI exposure was nearly 3 times as likely in boys with ASD relative to typical development, with the greatest risk when exposure took place during the first trimester,” said Li-Ching Lee, Ph.D., Sc.M., psychiatric epidemiologist in the Bloomberg School’s Department of Epidemiology. “SSRI was also elevated among boys with DD, with the strongest exposure effect in the third trimester.”
The data analysis was completed by Rebecca Harrington, Ph.D., M.P.H, in conjunction with her doctoral dissertation at the Bloomberg School. Dr. Lee was one of her advisors.
Serotonin is critical to early brain development; exposure during pregnancy to anything that influences serotonin levels can have potential effect on birth and developmental outcomes. The prevalence of ADS continues to rise. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 1 in 68 children in the U.S. is identified with ADS, and it is almost five times more common among boys than girls. One may question whether the increased use of SSRI in recent years is a contributor to the dramatic rise of ASD prevalence.
"This study provides further evidence that in some children, prenatal exposure to SSRIs may influence their risk for developing an autism spectrum disorder,” said Irva Hertz-Picciotto, Ph.D., M.P.H., chief of the Division of Environmental and Occupational Health in the UC Davis Department of Public Health Sciences and a researcher at the UC Davis MIND Institute. “This research also highlights the challenge for women and their physicians to balance the risks versus the benefits of taking these medications, given that a mother’s underlying mental-health conditions also may pose a risk, both to herself and her child.”
Regarding treatment, the authors note that maternal depression itself carries risks for the fetus, and the benefits of using SSRI during pregnancy should be considered carefully against the potential harm. The researchers also note that large sample studies are needed to investigate the effects in girls with ASD. Limitations of the study acknowledged include the difficulty in isolating SSRI effects from those of their indications for use, lack of information on SSRI dosage precluded dose-response analyses, and the relatively small sample of DD children resulted in imprecise estimates of association, which should be viewed with caution.
(Source: jhsph.edu)
High-fat diet in pregnancy linked to Alzheimer’s brain changes in offspring
A new study from scientists in Southampton has suggested that diet during pregnancy may affect an offspring’s risk of brain changes linked to Alzheimer’s disease. The research, which was funded by Alzheimer’s Research UK, studied adult mice whose mothers were fed either a normal or a high-fat diet during pregnancy and lactation. The study is due to be presented at Alzheimer’s Research UK Conference 2014 in Oxford this week.
Led by Dr Cheryl Hawkes at the University of Southampton, the team set out to investigate the links between obesity and Alzheimer’s. Obesity has been linked to a higher risk of the disease, and previous research has suggested that a mother’s diet during pregnancy may affect a child’s risk of obesity and conditions such as heart disease and diabetes in adulthood.
The researchers studied mice which were fed either a standard diet or a high-fat diet, and whose mothers were also fed either a high fat or standard diet during pregnancy and lactation. They then looked at markers of cholesterol and problems with blood vessels in the brain, both of which have been linked to Alzheimer’s.
They found that mice whose mothers ate a high-fat diet during pregnancy were more likely to have vascular changes in their brains later in life. Furthermore, when the offspring of mothers with a high-fat diet were also fed a high-fat diet, their brains’ blood vessels became less efficient at clearing the protein amyloid – a hallmark feature of the disease.
Dr Hawkes, an Alzheimer’s Research UK Senior Research Fellow at the University of Southampton, said: “Our preliminary findings suggest that mothers’ diets during pregnancy may have long-term effects on their children’s brains and vascular health. We still need to do more work to understand how our findings translate to humans, but we have known for some time that protecting mothers’ health during pregnancy can help lower the risk of health problems for their children. Our next step will be to investigate how our findings could relate to Alzheimer’s disease in people. We hope these results could provide a new lead for research to understand how to prevent the disease.”
Alzheimer’s Research UK is the UK’s leading dementia research charity, funding more than £20m of pioneering research into the condition across the UK. The charity’s annual conference on 25 and 26 March is the largest of its kind in the UK, and will see leading dementia scientists share their progress in the drive to defeat dementia.
Dr Eric Karran, Director of Research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: “It’s important to remember that this research is in mice, but these results add to existing evidence suggesting that the risk of Alzheimer’s disease in later life is affected by our health earlier in life. This study goes one step further by suggesting that what happens in the womb may also be important. We’re pleased to have funded this research, which has shed new light on the complex picture of Alzheimer’s risk.
“Alzheimer’s is a complicated disease and it’s likely that our risk is affected by a number of different genetic and environmental factors. Research to understand these factors can help equip us to take steps to prevent the disease, but in the meantime, evidence suggests we can lower our risk by eating a healthy, balanced diet, doing regular exercise, not smoking and keeping our blood pressure and weight in check.”
Higher vitamin D levels in pregnancy could help babies become stronger
Children are likely to have stronger muscles if their mothers had a higher level of vitamin D in their body during pregnancy, according to new research from the Medical Research Council Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit (MRC LEU) at the University of Southampton.
Low vitamin D status has been linked to reduced muscle strength in adults and children, but little is known about how variation in a mother’s status during pregnancy affects her child.
Low vitamin D concentrations are common among young women in the UK, and although women are recommended to take an additional 10μg/day of vitamin D in pregnancy, supplementation is often not taken up.
In the research, published in the January edition of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, vitamin D levels were measured in 678 mothers in the later stages of pregnancy.
When the children were four years old, grip strength and muscle mass were measured. Results showed that the higher the levels of vitamin D in the mother, the higher the grip strength of the child, with an additional, but less pronounced association between mother’s vitamin D and child’s muscle mass.
Lead researcher Dr Nicholas Harvey, Senior Lecturer at the MRC LEU at the University of Southampton, comments: “These associations between maternal vitamin D and offspring muscle strength may well have consequences for later health; muscle strength peaks in young adulthood before declining in older age and low grip strength in adulthood has been associated with poor health outcomes including diabetes, falls and fractures. It is likely that the greater muscle strength observed at four years of age in children born to mothers with higher vitamin D levels will track into adulthood, and so potentially help to reduce the burden of illness associated with loss of muscle mass in old age.”
The 678 women who took part in the study are part of the Southampton Women’s Survey, one of the largest and best characterised such studies globally.
Professor Cyrus Cooper, Professor of Rheumatology and Director of the MRC LEU at the University of Southampton, who oversaw this work, added: “This study forms part of a larger programme of research at the MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit and University of Southampton in which we are seeking to understand how factors such as diet and lifestyle in the mother during pregnancy influence a child’s body composition and bone development. This work should help us to design interventions aimed at optimising body composition in childhood and later adulthood and thus improve the health of future generations.”
(Source: southampton.ac.uk)
Prenatal Exposure to Alcohol Disrupts Brain Circuitry
Prenatal exposure to alcohol severely disrupts major features of brain development that potentially lead to increased anxiety and poor motor function, conditions typical in humans with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD), according to neuroscientists at the University of California, Riverside.
In a groundbreaking study, the UC Riverside team discovered that prenatal exposure to alcohol significantly altered the expression of genes and the development of a network of connections in the neocortex — the part of the brain responsible for high-level thought and cognition, vision, hearing, touch, balance, motor skills, language, and emotion — in a mouse model of FASD. Prenatal exposure caused wrong areas of the brain to be connected with each other, the researchers found.
These findings contradict the recently popular belief that consuming alcohol during pregnancy does no harm.
“If you consume alcohol when you are pregnant you can disrupt the development of your baby’s brain,” said Kelly Huffman, assistant professor of psychology at UC Riverside and lead author of the study that appears in the Nov. 27 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, the official, peer-reviewed publication of the Society of Neuroscience. Study co-authors are UCR Ph.D. students Hani El Shawa and Charles Abbott.
“This research helps us understand how substances like alcohol impact brain development and change behavior,” Huffman explained. “It also shows how prenatal alcohol exposure generates dramatic change in the brain that leads to changes in behavior. Although this study uses a moderate- to high-dose model, others have shown that even small doses alter development of key receptors in the brain.”
Researchers have long known that ethanol exposure from a mother’s consumption of alcohol impacts brain and cognitive development in the child, but had not previously demonstrated a connection between that exposure and disruption of neural networks that potentially leads to changes in behavior.
Huffman’s team found dramatic changes in intraneocortical connections between the frontal, somatosensory and visual cortex in mice born to mothers who consumed ethanol during pregnancy. The changes were especially severe in the frontal cortex, which regulates motor skill learning, decision-making, planning, judgment, attention, risk-taking, executive function and sociality.
The neocortex region of the mammalian brain is similar in mice and humans, although human processing is more complex. In previous research, Huffman and her team created what amounts to an atlas of the neocortex, identifying the development of regions, gene expression and the cortical circuit over time. That research is foundational to understanding behavioral disorders such as autism and FASD.
Children diagnosed with FASD may have facial deformities and can exhibit cognitive, behavioral and motor deficits from ethanol-related neurobiological damage in early development. Those deficits may include learning disabilities, reduced intelligence, mental retardation and anxiety or depression, Huffman said.
Milder forms of FASD may produce no facial deformities, such as wideset eyes and smooth upper lip, but behavioral issues such as hyperactivity, hyperirritability and attention problems may appear as the child develops, she added.
Based on her earlier research, Huffman said, she expected to find some disruption of intraneocortical circuitry, but thought it would be subtle.
“I was surprised that the result of alcohol exposure was quite dramatic,” she said. “We found elevated levels of anxiety, disengaged behavior, and difficulty with fine motor coordination tasks. These are the kinds of things you see in children with FASD.”
The next phase of her research will examine whether deficits related to prenatal exposure to alcohol continue in subsequent generations.
The bottom line, Huffman said, is that women who are pregnant or who are trying to get pregnant should abstain from drinking alcohol.
“Would you put whiskey in your baby’s bottle? Drinking during pregnancy is not that much different,” she said. “If you ask me if you have three glasses of wine during pregnancy will your child have FASD, I would say probably not. If you ask if there will be changes in the brain, I would say, probably. There is no safe level of drinking during pregnancy.”
Pregnant mother’s stress affects baby’s gut and brain
Pregnant women may pass on the effects of stress to their fetus by way of bacterial changes in their vagina, suggests a study in mice. It may affect how well their baby’s brain is equipped to deal with stress in adulthood.
The bacteria in our body outnumber our own cells by about 10 to 1, with most of them found in our gut. Over the last few years, it has become clear that the bacterial ecosystem in our body – our microbiome – is essential for developing and maintaining a healthy immune system.
Our gut bugs also help to prevent germs from invading our bodies, and help to absorb nutrients from food.
A baby gets its first major dose of bacteria in life as it passes through its mother’s birth canal. En route, the baby ingests the mother’s vaginal microbes, which begin to colonise the newborn’s gut.
Chris Howerton, then at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and his colleagues wanted to know if this initial population of bacteria is important in shaping a baby’s neurological development, and whether that population is influenced by stress during pregnancy.
Stressful pregnancy
The first step was to figure out what features of the mother’s vaginal microbiome might be altered by stress, and then see if any of those changes were transmitted to the offspring’s gut.
To do this, the team exposed 10 pregnant mice to a different psychologically stressful experience, such as exposing them to fox odour, keeping their cages lit at night, or temporarily restraining them every day for what would be the equivalent of the first trimester of their pregnancy. Another 10 pregnant mice were housed normally during the same time.
The team took samples of their vaginal bacteria throughout the pregnancy and again just after the mice had given birth. These samples were genetically sequenced to see what types of bacteria were present.
The microbiomes of the stressed mice were remarkably different to those of the unstressed mice after they had each given birth. There were more types of bacteria present, and the proportion of one common gut bacteria, Lactobacillus, was significantly reduced.
Like mother, like pup
To see whether these changes had been passed on to the pups, a few days after birth the pups’ nascent gut bacteria was removed from their colon and sequenced. Sure enough, the same bacterial patterns were seen in the pups of stressed mothers.
By analysing tissue from the pups’ hypothalamus – a brain area involved in hormone control, behaviour and sleep, among other things – the team was able to infer which genes were affected by the stress-induced changes in each mother’s microbiome.
They found that the expression of 20 genes was affected by the decrease in Lactobacillus, including genes related to the production of new neurons and the growth of synaptic connections in the brain.
These genetic outcomes in the brain are probably a result of a different suite of nutrients and metabolites circulating in the “stressed” pup’s blood, thanks to the altered gut flora they inherited. Indeed, when the team analysed the blood of the pups of the stressed mothers, they found that there were fewer molecules present necessary for the formation of essential neurotransmitters – chemicals that transmit signals to the brain. Furthermore, there were lower levels of a molecule thought to protect the brain from harmful oxidative stress.
"These changes are significant and are likely to be important for determining how the brain initially develops and how it will respond in the future to things like stress or changes in the environment," says Tracy Bale, Howerton’s supervisor during the research and director of the University of Pennsylvania lab.
As well as changing the nutrients available, the microbiome could also affect the brain via the immune system or by innervating the nerves in the gut that connect to it. “These three mechanisms aren’t mutually exclusive. It’s likely that they all play a role,” says Howerton.
Human angle
If the same effects are seen in humans, there may be a straightforward solution. “We can easily manipulate the bacteria we have inside of us,” says Howerton. For example, if a certain cocktail of bacteria is found to be beneficial to the newborns of stressed mothers, we could give it to them right after birth, he suggests. This approach could also benefit babies born via C-section, who do not pass through their mother’s birth canal, or those born to mothers whose gut bacteria has been disrupted as a result of antibiotic use during pregnancy.
Bale is now investigating the link between bacteria and brain development in pregnant women who have been through several traumatic experiences to analyse the effects on their babies’ gut bacteria. She also intends to follow their children’s behaviour as they grow up.
Resource rationale
"This is a remarkable trans-disciplinary study in how it bridged multiple organ systems to illuminate a complex question," says Catherine Hagan from the University of Missouri in Columbia. She says that more work needs to be done to show a causal link. "Mice are not tiny people – people are not big mice – more data is needed to understand how stress in mothers affects brain development in children," she says. "That said, mice and people have enough in common that this study provides a rationale for allocating resources to address such a concern."
"At the end of the day, most of what makes you ‘you’, and what drives your quality of life, comes down to the brain," says Bale. "It’s this very important, vulnerable tissue that is susceptible to many perturbations. If the microbiome is proven to be one of these driving forces, then it’s essential we know just how factors in our environment can change it and can reprogram the brain."
(Source: newscientist.com)
Exercise during pregnancy gives newborn brain development a head start
As little as 20 minutes of moderate exercise three times per week during pregnancy enhances the newborn child’s brain development, according to researchers at the University of Montreal and its affiliated CHU Sainte-Justine children’s hospital. This head-start could have an impact on the child’s entire life. “Our research indicates that exercise during pregnancy enhances the newborn child’s brain development,” explained Professor Dave Ellemberg, who led the study. “While animal studies have shown similar results, this is the first randomized controlled trial in humans to objectively measure the impact of exercise during pregnancy directly on the newborn’s brain. We hope these results will guide public health interventions and research on brain plasticity. Most of all, we are optimistic that this will encourage women to change their health habits, given that the simple act of exercising during pregnancy could make a difference for their child’s future.” Ellemberg and his colleagues Professor Daniel Curnier and PhD candidate Élise Labonté-LeMoyne presented their findings today at the Neuroscience 2013 congress in San Diego.
Not so long ago, obstetricians would tell women to take it easy and rest during their pregnancy. Recently, the tides have turned and it is now commonly accepted that inactivity is actually a health concern. “While being sedentary increases the risks of suffering complications during pregnancy, being active can ease post-partum recovery, make pregnancy more comfortable and reduce the risk of obesity in the children,” Curier explained. “Given that exercise has been demonstrated to be beneficial for the adult’s brain, we hypothesized that it could also be beneficial for the unborn child through the mother’s actions.”
To verify this, starting at the beginning of their second trimester, women were randomly assigned to an exercise group or a sedentary group. Women in the exercise group had to perform at least 20 minutes of cardiovascular exercise three times per week at a moderate intensity, which should lead to at least a slight shortness of breath. Women in the sedentary group did not exercise. The brain activity of the newborns was assessed between the ages of 8 to 12 days, by means of electroencephalography, which enables the recording of the electrical activity of the brain. “We used 124 soft electrodes placed on the infant’s head and waited for the child to fall asleep on his or her mother’s lap. We then measured auditory memory by means of the brain’s unconscious response to repeated and novel sounds,” Labonté-LeMoyne said. “Our results show that the babies born from the mothers who were physically active have a more mature cerebral activation, suggesting that their brains developed more rapidly.”
The researchers are now in the process of evaluating the children’s cognitive, motor and language development at age 1 to verify if these differences are maintained.
(Source: nouvelles.umontreal.ca)
Babies learn to anticipate touch in the womb
Babies learn how to anticipate touch while in the womb, according to new research.
Using 4-d scans psychologists at Durham and Lancaster universities found, for the first time, that fetuses were able to predict, rather than react to, their own hand movements towards their mouths as they entered the later stages of gestation compared to earlier in a pregnancy.
The Durham-led team of researchers said that the latest findings could improve understanding about babies, especially those born prematurely, their readiness to interact socially and their ability to calm themselves by sucking on their thumb or fingers.
They said the results could also be a potential indicator of how prepared babies are for feeding.
The researchers carried out a total of 60 scans of 15 healthy fetuses at monthly intervals between 24 weeks and 36 weeks gestation.
Fetuses in the earlier stage of gestation more frequently touched the upper part and sides of their heads.
As the fetuses matured they began to increasingly touch the lower, more sensitive, part of their faces including their mouths.
By 36 weeks a significantly higher proportion of fetuses were observed opening their mouths before touching them, suggesting that later in pregnancy they were able to anticipate that their hands were about to touch their mouths, rather than reacting to the touch of their hands, the researchers said.
Increased sensitivity around a fetus’ mouth at this later stage of pregnancy could mean that they have more “awareness” of mouth movement, they added.
Previous theories have suggested that movement in sequence could form the basis for the development of intention in fetuses.
The researchers said their findings could potentially be an indicator of healthy development, as arguably fetuses who are delayed in this development due to illness, such as growth restriction, might not show the same behaviour observed during the study.
The research, published in the journal Developmental Psychobiology, involved eight girls and seven boys and the researchers noticed no difference in behaviour between boys and girls.
Lead author Dr Nadja Reissland, in the Department of Psychology, at Durham University, said: “Increased touching of the lower part of the face and mouth in fetuses could be an indicator of brain development necessary for healthy development, including preparedness for social interaction, self-soothing and feeding.
“What we have observed are sequential events, which show maturation in the development of fetuses, which is the basis for life after birth.
“The findings could provide more information about when babies are ready to engage with their environment, especially if born prematurely.”
Brian Francis, Professor of Social Statistics at Lancaster, added: “This effect is likely to be evolutionally determined, preparing the child for life outside the womb. Building on these findings, future research could lead to more understanding about how the child is prepared prenatally for life, including their ability to engage with their social environment, regulate stimulation and being ready to take a breast or bottle.”
The study builds on previous research by Durham and Lancaster into fetal development. Earlier this year another of their studies showed that unborn babies practise facial expressions in the womb in what is thought to be preparation for communicating after birth.
And in 2012 Dr Reissland published research showing that unborn babies yawn in the womb, suggesting that yawning is a developmental process which could potentially give doctors another index of a fetus’ health.