Maternal early life and prenatal stress in relation to birth outcomes in Argentinian mothers.

Environmental influences before and during pregnancy significantly impact offspring development. This study investigates open research questions regarding the associations between maternal early life stress (ELS), prenatal psychosocial stress, prenatal hair cortisol (HC), and birth outcomes in Argentinian women. Data on ELS, prenatal life events, HC (two samples representing first and second half of pregnancy), and birth outcomes were collected from middle-class Argentinian women (N = 69) upon delivery.

Familial occurrence of diminished pancreatic amylase in serum--a "silent" Amy-2 allelic variant?

We describe a family of 32 subjects, including two healthy siblings without detectable pancreatic amylase in serum and five healthy relatives (one of them a sister) exhibiting subnormal pancreatic amylase activities. Comparisons of immunoreactive amylase concentrations with the corresponding amylase activities may justify the assumption of a "silent" Amy-2 allelic variant.