Brain Habit

Fetal programming is the process by which early environment interacts with genes to produce an individual human constitution. It is not only of great interest to developmental scientists but also has high media resonance due to the more and more commonly acknowledged notion that pregnancy actually affects vulnerability to disease later in life. First evidence came from an epidemiological study showing that birth characteristics, like low weight and lower gestational age, were linked to later diseases like diabetes, hypertension, but also psychopathology. What is currently accepted, though, is that these individual characteristics at birth are not the actual risk factors for later disease but rather is the environment to which the mother and the fetus are exposed during pregnancy that affects fetal development itself and in turn development later in life. There comes the focus of this post on actual prenatal conditions that may increase the risk for disease later in life, with a...