: We evaluated associations between changes in dental anxiety and oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) in parents of the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study. : Two-year dental anxiety trajectories measured with Modified Dental Anxiety Scale from gestational weeks (gw) 14 and 34, and 3 and 24 months after birth were used. OHRQoL was measured with the Oral Health Impact Profile 14-item questionnaire at gw34 and 4 years.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe study aimed to investigate the persistence or changes in trait resilience of parents over a 6-year period and its association with stressful life events (SLEs). Furthermore, we explored the potential protective effect of trait resilience against exposure to stressful life events and their negative mental health consequences. The study population was drawn from the ongoing FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study and included 1388 mothers and 657 fathers who completed the CD-RISC-10 questionnaire during pregnancy and again 6 years later.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEarly-onset pre-eclampsia is believed to arise from defective placentation in the first trimester, leading to placental ischaemia/reperfusion (I/R) and oxidative stress. However, our current understanding of the effects of I/R and oxidative stress on trophoblast function is ambiguous in part due to studies exposing trophoblasts to hypoxia instead of I/R, and which report conflicting results. Here, we present a model of simulated ischaemia/reperfusion (SI/R) to recapitulate the pathophysiological events of early-onset pre-eclampsia (PE), by exposing first trimester cytotrophoblast HTR-8/SVneo cells to a simulated ischaemia buffer followed by reperfusion.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPrioritized attention to faces can be viewed as an early-developing marker of social engagement. This behavior is closely linked with early interactions, but there has been little research examining the longitudinal associations between social engagement and parent-child interaction. We examined the reciprocal relations between mother-child interaction and child engagement with faces from infancy to preschool age.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAim: Parental adverse childhood experiences (ACE) might affect the offspring health through intergenerational inheritance. The aim of this study was to investigate how paternal ACE associate with offspring sensitisation and allergic rhinitis (AR).
Methods: The study included 590 Finnish father-child dyads from the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study.
Epigenetic processes, such as DNA methylation, show potential as biological markers and mechanisms underlying gene-environment interplay in the prediction of mental health and other brain-based phenotypes. However, little is known about how peripheral epigenetic patterns relate to individual differences in the brain itself. An increasingly popular approach to address this is by combining epigenetic and neuroimaging data; yet, research in this area is almost entirely comprised of cross-sectional studies in adults.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLarge multi-site studies that combine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data across research sites present exceptional opportunities to advance neuroscience research. However, scanner or site variability and non-standardised image acquisition protocols, data processing and analysis pipelines can adversely affect the reliability and repeatability of MRI derived brain measures. We implemented a standardised MRI protocol based on that used in the Adolescent Brain Cognition Development (ABCD) study in two sites, and across four MRI scanners.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPre-eclampsia (PE) is a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy which is associated with increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders in exposed offspring. The pathophysiological mechanisms mediating this relationship are currently unknown, and one potential candidate is the anti-angiogenic factor soluble Fms-like tyrosine kinase 1 (sFlt-1), which is highly elevated in PE. While sFlt-1 can impair angiogenesis via inhibition of VEGFA signalling, it is unclear whether it can directly affect neuronal development independently of its effects on the vasculature.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe studied the effects of mother-infant interaction and maternal pre- and postnatal psychological distress on children's social-emotional problems and competences, as well as whether interaction quality moderates the association between distress and children's outcomes. Maternal pre- and postnatal psychological distress were measured using the SCL and EPDS questionnaires, whereas mother-infant interaction was measured when the child was 8 months old using the EA Scales. Children's social-emotional development was measured using the BITSEA questionnaire at 2 years old and using the SDQ questionnaire at 4 years old, where higher maternal structuring was associated with fewer social-emotional problems in children and higher maternal sensitivity was associated with greater social-emotional competence in children at 2 years old.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArch Gynecol Obstet
October 2024
Purpose: Sleep disturbances, which are common during pregnancy, may compromise labor. Nevertheless, little is known about associations between sleep disturbances and the likelihood of ending up induction of labor (IOL). Accordingly, we aimed to evaluate the connections between sleep disturbances during pregnancy and IOL.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe aimed to identify parents' dental anxiety trajectories and the association of the trajectories with the number of parents' and their children's oral healthcare procedures in the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study. Dental anxiety was measured with the Modified Dental Anxiety Scale at gestational weeks (gw) 14 and 34, as well as 3 and 24 months (mo) after childbirth. Oral healthcare procedures from gw14 to 24 mo were obtained from the national patient data register and categorized as preventive and treatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe aim of this study was to evaluate the concordance of parents' assessments of their child's dental fear. Cross-sectional secondary analysis used data from the multidisciplinary FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study. Child dental fear was assessed at age 5 with the Finnish translation of the modified Children's Fear Survey Schedule Dental Subscale (CFSS-M) by both fathers (n = 588) and mothers (n = 1100).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: It is well-established that parental obesity is a strong risk factor for offspring obesity. Further, a converging body of evidence now suggests that maternal weight profiles may affect the developing offspring's brain in a manner that confers future obesity risk. Here, we investigated how pre-pregnancy maternal weight status influences the reward-related striatal areas of the offspring's brain during in utero development.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Touch is an essential form of mother-child interaction, instigating better social bonding and emotional stability.
Methods: We used diffuse optical tomography to explore the relationship between total haemoglobin (HbT) responses to affective touch in the child's brain at two years of age and maternal self-reported prenatal depressive symptoms (EPDS). Affective touch was implemented via slow brushing of the child's right forearm at 3 cm/s and non-affective touch via fast brushing at 30 cm/s and HbT responses were recorded on the left hemisphere.
Research has revealed a rise in family relationship problems during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially among couples with young children. However, longitudinal studies spanning the prepandemic and pandemic periods are rare. In this study, we examined changes in couple functioning during these periods.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Little is known about the normative courses of pregnancy-related anxiety throughout pregnancy and their antecedents. We examined in a large scale pregnancy cohort which potentially distinct trajectories of pregnancy-related anxiety across pregnancy can be identified, and which factors predict these trajectories.
Methods: A general sample of pregnant women (n = 2928) from the FinnBrain Birth Cohort participated in this study.
Maternal prenatal distress can participate in the programming of offspring development, in which exposure to altered maternal long-term cortisol levels as measured by hair cortisol concentrations (HCC) may contribute. Yet, studies investigating whether and how maternal prenatal HCC associates with problems in child socioemotional development are scarce. Furthermore, questions remain regarding the timing and potential sex-specificity of fetal exposure to altered cortisol levels and whether there are interactions with maternal prenatal distress, such as depressive symptoms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMaternal symptoms of depression and anxiety during pregnancy and early postnatal years are suggested to impose differential negative effects on child's socio-emotional development depending on the characteristics of the symptoms, such as timing, intensity, and persistence. The aim of this study was to identify trajectories of maternal depressive and anxiety symptoms from pregnancy until 2 years postpartum and to examine their relationship with child socio-emotional problems and competence at 2 and 5 years of age. The sample included 1208 mother-infant dyads from FinnBrain Birth Cohort study.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Expecting mothers with high sense of coherence (SOC) exhibit improved physical, emotional, and childbearing health. However, the dimensions of SOC and the factor structure of the SOC-13 scale during prenatal period is slightly known. Especially the differences in experiencing SOC and its components (comprehensibility, manageability, meaningfulness) among both expecting parents (mothers and fathers) is poorly understood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Patterns of sensory inputs early in life play an integral role in shaping the maturation of neural circuits, including those implicated in emotion and cognition. In both experimental animal models and observational human research, unpredictable sensory signals have been linked to aberrant developmental outcomes, including poor memory and effortful control. These findings suggest that sensitivity to unpredictable sensory signals is conserved across species and sculpts the developing brain.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIt has been suggested that infants' age-typical attention biases for faces and facial expressions have an inherent connection with the parent-infant interaction. However, only a few previous studies have addressed this topic. To investigate the association between maternal caregiving behaviors and an infant's attention for emotional faces, 149 mother-infant dyads were assessed when the infants were 8 months.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Studies indicate that gut microbiota is related to neurodevelopmental and behavioral outcomes. Accordingly, early gut microbiota composition (GMC) has been linked to child temperament, but research is still scarce. The aim of this study was to examine how early GMC at 2.
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