Hormonal evidence supports the theory of selection in utero

Objectives: Antagonists in the debate over whether the maternal stress response during pregnancy damages or culls fetuses have invoked the theory of selection in utero to support opposing positions. We describe how these opposing arguments arise from the same theory and offer a novel test to discrim...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American journal of human biology 2012-07, Vol.24 (4), p.526-532
Main Authors: Catalano, R.A., Saxton, K.B., Bruckner, T.A., Pearl, M., Anderson, E., Goldman-Mellor, S., Margerison-Zilko, C., Subbaraman, M., Currier, R.J., Kharrazi, M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abortion, Spontaneous - epidemiology
Abortion, Spontaneous - etiology
Birth Rate
California - epidemiology
Chorionic Gonadotropin - blood
Cohort Studies
Female
Fetal Death - epidemiology
Fetal Death - etiology
Genetic Fitness
Humans
Infant Mortality - trends
Infant, Newborn
Live Birth
Male
Models, Biological
Pregnancy
Selection, Genetic
Sex Ratio
Stress, Physiological
Survival Analysis
Time Factors
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Summary:Objectives: Antagonists in the debate over whether the maternal stress response during pregnancy damages or culls fetuses have invoked the theory of selection in utero to support opposing positions. We describe how these opposing arguments arise from the same theory and offer a novel test to discriminate between them. Our test, rooted in reports from population endocrinology that human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) signals fetal fitness, contributes not only to the debate over the fetal origins of illness, but also to the more basic literature concerned with whether and how natural selection in utero affects contemporary human populations. Methods: We linked maternal serum hCG measurements from prenatal screening tests with data from the California Department of Public Health birth registry for the years 2001–2007. We used time series analysis to test the association between the number of live‐born male singletons and median hCG concentration among males in monthly gestational cohorts. Results: Among the 1.56 million gestations in our analysis, we find that median hCG levels among male survivors of monthly conception cohorts rise as the number of male survivors falls. Results: Elevated median hCG among relatively small male birth cohorts supports the theory of selection in utero and suggests that the maternal stress response culls cohorts in gestation by raising the fitness criterion for survival to birth. Am. J. Hum. Biol., 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
ISSN:1042-0533
1520-6300
1520-6300
DOI:10.1002/ajhb.22265