Special Interest Group Meeting XII: Prenatal Programming of Childhood Health Complications: Opportunities for Prevention

The intrauterine environment plays an important and lasting role in shaping lifespan health. Prenatal exposure to toxic environmental stimuli (e.g., pollution, tobacco smoke, maternal stress) can alter the development of key biological systems (e.g., the neuroendocrine and immune systems and the gut microbiome) and confer risk for chronic health complications. Interventions targeting harmful prenatal exposures have the potential to promote maternal health and prevent the prenatal programming of chronic disease in offspring. Pregnant women have frequent contact with the healthcare system creating unique opportunities for prevention. This special interest group will provide a forum for researchers with an interest in perinatal prevention to network and build cross-disciplinary collaborations. We will discuss a number of topics that are broadly relevant to perinatal prevention researchers, for example: (1) improving identification of high-risk pregnancies in healthcare settings; (2) elucidating prenatal programming mechanisms (e.g., epigenetics) and disease pathways to inform intervention development; (3) overcoming challenges to intervention implementation in relevant settings (e.g., prenatal care clinics); (4) building cross-disciplinary collaborations and community partnerships; and (5) collecting and analyzing biospecimens (e.g., cord blood and placenta). Finally, we will discuss topics for a symposium proposal for the 2020 SPR meeting.