A closer look
Maternal stress is basically a biochemical wrecking ball that remodels a fetus's future. During Project Ice Storm, researchers tracked children born to mothers who endured weeks of freezing temperatures and massive stress without power in Quebec. The mothers' astronomical cortisol levels flooded through the placenta, engaging in perinatal epigenetic programming. This means the stress hormones chemically altered the fetal DNA, permanently switching on genes related to asthma, autism spectrum traits, and severe metabolic issues that the children exhibited for over a decade later.
