Moderate anxiety in pregnant women does not compromise gestational immune-endocrine status and outcome, but renders mothers to be susceptible for diseased states development: A preliminary report
Tania Romo-González, Beda Y. Retureta, Elly N. Sánchez-Rodríguez, Armando J. Martínez, Anahi Chavarría, Gabriel Gutiérrez-Ospina
Grupo de Biología y Salud Integral, Instituto de Investigaciones Biológicas, Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa, Veracruz, México.
Instituto de Neuroetología, Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa, Veracruz, México.
Laboratorio de Biología de Sistemas, Departamento de Biología Celular, Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad de México, México.
Laboratorio de Neuroinmunología, Departamento de Medicina Experimental, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad de México, México.
Reproduction, Development and Sexual Function Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada.
DOI: 10.4236/abb.2012.31015   PDF    HTML     6,961 Downloads   10,184 Views   Citations

Abstract

High anxiety levels during pregnancy commonly lead to clinical complications that affect the mother/child’s prenatal and perinatal health. Such complications are thought to result from combining deficiencies of the endocrine milieu and decreased immune tolerance that support pregnancy. It is yet unclear whether pregnant women subjected to moderate anxiety develop a similar state of endocrine deficits and compromised immune tolerance. Here, we evaluated this issue by monitoring endocrine and immune parameters during pregnancy in a sample of women suffering of moderate anxiety. The health of mothers and children, as well as the outcome of the pregnancies were also revised and recorded. Moderately anxious pregnant women present increments of state anxiety, serum cortisol and progesterone, but not of estradiol, as pregnancy progressed. No variations of leukocyte anti- and pro-inflammatory cytokine mRNA expression were found along pregnancy. However, these pregnant women did show an increased frequency of gestational and perinatal complications, conditions that had no major consequences for their health and that of their children at birth. Hence, moderate anxiety renders the mother to be susceptible to develop diseased states during or by the end of pregnancy, while keeping the endocrine milieu and immune tolerance reasonably in place.

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Romo-González, T. , Retureta, B. , Sánchez-Rodríguez, E. , Martínez, A. , Chavarría, A. and Gutiérrez-Ospina, G. (2012) Moderate anxiety in pregnant women does not compromise gestational immune-endocrine status and outcome, but renders mothers to be susceptible for diseased states development: A preliminary report. Advances in Bioscience and Biotechnology, 3, 101-106. doi: 10.4236/abb.2012.31015.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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