Pregnancy can be a stressful period in a woman’s life, and high levels of it can be detrimental to the health of both mother and child. Previous research has indicated that these stressors may affect telomere length in their offspring. Unfortunately, many of these studies compromised mostly white mothers.
That said, researchers from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) set out to determine how maternal stressors that occur during adolescence, pregnancy, and across their lifespan may relate to telomere length in the children of Black and White mothers.
Maternal Stressors and Cell Aging in Children
For a study published in Psychological Medicine, UCSF researchers followed 222 women, 110 of whom were white and 112 who were black, from age 10 to about 40. The researchers also followed their first child, with an average age of 8, to how the stressors experienced by the mothers during the aforementioned time periods (adolescence, pregnancy, and throughout their lifespan) influenced their children’s telomeres.
Telomere length is associated with longevity and lifespan and while they do shorten with time, prematurely shortened telomeres have been associated with increased all-cause mortality risk in the general population. This may be because shortened telomeres have been linked to an increased risk of osteoporosis and neurodegenerative disorders.
Stress is aging the kids
While stressors during adolescence and lifespan had no impact on their children’s telomere length, the researchers found that stressors during pregnancy were associated with shorter telomere length in white children, and not black children. Additionally, these stressors were more financial than social.
Lead study author and UCSF assistant professor of psychiatry Stefanie Mayer, Ph.D., said that while they can speculate on the reasons for the results, there is still more research needed to better understand the findings.
That said, she insists that researchers need to continue to study and better understand how stress is transmitted in black mothers, as well as in other understudied racial-ethnic communities. Study senior author Elissa Epel, Ph.D., echoes these sentiments. She added that the stress measures used in the study may need to be re-evaluated, as these measures may not have captured the unique stressors of black women, such as discrimination and institutionalized racism.
Supporting pregnant people
“Given racial health disparities and the role of stress in other important pregnancy health outcomes, such as birth weight and preterm birth, it is critical to support all women during this important period,” – Elissa Epel, PhD.
Epel adds that it is necessary to provide interventions to expectant parents that not only address chronic stress but also the issues that contribute to it, such as food insecurity, financial strain, and housing instability.
For pregnant people and their partners, the following tools can help them mitigate the stressors that come with pregnancy:
- Mindfulness
- Regular exercise
- Eat well
- Get enough sleep
- Treat yourself
Want to know more?
It is vital to take care of your mental health, and even more so, your child’s mental health. Unfortunately, many psychological problems originate in childhood and have consequences for adulthood. So let’s dive into this topic and find out about babies’ mental health.
References
Mayer, S., Guan, J., Lin, J., Hamlat, E., Parker, J., Brownell, K., . . . Epel, E. (2022). Intergenerational effects of maternal lifetime stressor exposure on offspring telomere length in Black and White women. Psychological Medicine, 1-12. doi:10.1017/S0033291722003397
Wang, Q., Zhan, Y., Pedersen, N. L., Fang, F., & Hägg, S. (2018). Telomere Length and All-Cause Mortality: A Meta-analysis. Ageing research reviews, 48, 11–20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.arr.2018.09.002
Wong, S. K., Ima-Nirwana, S., & Chin, K. Y. (2020). Can telomere length predict bone health? A review of current evidence. Bosnian journal of basic medical sciences, 20(4), 423–429. https://doi.org/10.17305/bjbms.2020.4664
Yu, H. J., & Koh, S. H. (2022). Is Telomere Length Shortening a Risk Factor for Neurodegenerative Disorders?. Dementia and neurocognitive disorders, 21(3), 83–92. https://doi.org/10.12779/dnd.2022.21.3.83
