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Fetal programming, also known as prenatal programming, is the theory that environmental cues experienced during fetal development play a seminal role in determining health trajectories across the lifespan. Three main forms of programming that occur due to changes in the maternal environment are:
The effects of fetal origin are marked by three characteristics: latency, wherein effects may not be apparent until much later in life; persistency, whereby conditions resulting from a fetal effect continue to exist for a given individual; and genetic programming, which describes the 'switching on' of a specific gene due to prenatal environment ...
"Barker's Hypothesis" is also known as "Fetal Programming Hypothesis". The word "programming" illustrates the idea that during critical periods in early fetal development, there are persisting changes in the body structure and function that are caused by environmental stimuli. [6]
Modifications of histones are important processes in developmental programming, with studies showing that maternal and paternal stress can induce histone modifications. These histone modifications alter phenotypes of organisms and can be the mechanism behind the predisposition of some metabolic disorders. [ 16 ]
Maternal immune cells are also found in the offspring yielding in maternal→fetal microchimerism, though this phenomenon is about half as frequent as the former. [ 11 ] Microchimerism had also been shown to exist after blood transfusions to a severely immunocompromised population of patients who suffered trauma .
Considering the duration of the fetal stages of development, the environment of the mother's womb can have long lasting effects on the health of offspring. [ citation needed ] An example of how the environment within the womb can affect the health of an offspring is the Dutch hunger winter of 1944–45 and its causal effect on induced ...
In genetics, a maternal effect occurs when the phenotype of an organism is determined by the genotype of its mother. [1] For example, if a mutation is maternal effect recessive, then a female homozygous for the mutation may appear phenotypically normal, however her offspring will show the mutant phenotype, even if they are heterozygous for the mutation.
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