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“Exposure to early relational trauma that predisposes a person to dissociation and PTSD may affect that individual’s short- and long-term cortisol patterns,” wrote Julia S. Seng, Ph.D., of the University of Michigan and colleagues. Previous studies suggest that elevated cortisol levels are a risk factor for preterm birth, affecting the onset of labor and inflammatory processes.
A diagnosis of PTSD may include a dissociative subtype (PTSD-D) characterized by altered perception of oneself and the world. PTSD-D is associated with a greater number of lifetime trauma exposures, including a history of childhood maltreatment.
The study by Seng and colleagues involved 395 women expecting their first child who were divided into four groups: those without trauma, those with a trauma but no PTSD, those with lifetime PTSD, and those with PTSD-D (presence of depersonalization and/or derealization consistent with the DSM-5 dissociative subtype definition). The researchers analyzed saliva cortisol specimens collected by these women at three different times on a single day during the first half of their pregnancy. A subsample of 111 women, including women from each of the four cohorts, provided three salivary cortisol specimens per day, 12 times, from early pregnancy to six weeks postpartum for longitudinal data (This sample included 34 women without trauma, 38 with trauma but no PTSD, 31 with PTSD only, and eight with PTSD-D).
In early pregnancy (gestational week 8), the cortisol levels of participants in the PTSD-D group were two times greater in the morning, eight times greater in the afternoon, and 10 times greater at bedtime than the cortisol levels of participants in the non-exposed control group. In late pregnancy (gestational week 32), participants in the PTSD-D group had cortisol levels that were less than two times greater in the morning and 1.5 times greater levels in the afternoon and at bedtime compared with participants in the non-exposed control group. The difference between the PTSD-D and the other groups was most apparent in early pregnancy, which is a critical period for fetal development, noted the authors.
“Although some women with histories of childhood maltreatment are resilient or recovered by the time they become pregnant, these biological findings indicate that some are very adversely affected psychologically and very stressed during the childbearing year,” the authors wrote. “We can screen and apply a stepped approach to maternity care that includes case-finding and interventions for women with PTSD, posttraumatic depression, and PTSD-D.”
For related information, see the Psychiatric News article “Researchers Tackle Complexity of Intergenerational Stress Transmission.”
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