Citation

O'Donnell MH, Behie AM. Evol. Med. Public Health 2015; 2015(1): 344-354.

Affiliation

School of Archaeology and Anthropology, College of Arts and Social Sciences, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, 0200.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Oxford University Press)

DOI

10.1093/emph/eov027

PMID

26574560

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Maternal stress can depress birth weight and gestational age, with potential health effects. A growing number of studies examine the effect of maternal stress caused by environmental disasters on birth outcomes. These changes may indicate an adaptive response. In this study, we examine the effects of maternal exposure to wildfire on birth weight and gestational age, hypothesising that maternal stress will negatively influence these measures.

METHODOLOGY: Using data from the Australian Capital Territory, we employed Analysis of Variance to examine the influence of the 2003 Canberra wildfires on mothers being resident in fire-affected regions, while considering the role of other factors.

RESULTS: We found that male infants born in the most severely fire-affected area had significantly higher average birth weights than their less exposed peers and were also heavier than males born in the same area in non-fire years. Higher average weights were attributable to an increase in the number of macrosomic infants. There was no significant effect on the weight of female infants or on gestational age for either sex.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Our findings indicate heightened environmental responsivity in the male cohort. We find that elevated maternal stress acted to accelerate the growth of male foetuses, potentially through an elevation of maternal blood glucose levels. Like previous studies, our work finds effects of disaster exposure and suggests that fetal growth patterns respond to maternal signals. However, the direction of the change in birth weight is opposite to that of many earlier studies.

Language: en