The contribution of childhood adversity to cortisol measures of early life stress amongst infants in rural India: Findings from the early life stress sub-study of the SPRING cluster randomised controlled trial (SPRING-ELS)

摘要

BackgroundThe majority of the world’s children live in low- and middle-income countries and face multiple obstacles to optimal wellbeing. The mechanisms by which adversities – social, cultural, psychological, environmental, economic – get ‘under the skin’ in the early days of life and become biologically embedded remain an important line of enquiry. We therefore examined the contribution of childhood adversity through pregnancy and the first year of life to hair and salivary cortisol measures of early life stress in the India SPRING home visits cluster RCT which aims to improve early childhood development.