Anesthesia and Acoustic Stress-Induced Intra-Uterine Growth Retardation in Mice

摘要

Stress interferes with reproduction, adversely influencing implantation and fetal growth, and sometimes even leading to abortion. Here, we attempted to evaluate the early gestational effects of uncomfortable sound on pregnant mice and their offspring.Ten-week-old pregnant Jcl:ICR mice were exposed to sound (100 dB, random frequency between 9-34 kHz) for 8 hours on the 3rd, 5th and 7th gestational days (GD). The effects of general anesthesia were also investigated, with or without acoustic stress. All groups were examined on the 18th GD for fetal growth. Fetal weight, number of ossified sacrococcygeal vertebrae and placental weight were all significantly reduced (P<0.0001) when stress was induced on the 7th GD, but not on the 3rd or 5th GD. This intra-uterine growth retardation (IUGR) was significantly inhibited by general anesthesia (P<0.0001), although general anesthesia alone induced significant IUGR (P<0.0001) when compared with control mice. This suggests that acoustic exposure indirectly exerts an effect on fetal growth, possibly via a psycho-maternal pathway. We also found that analysis of the number of ossified sacrococcygeal vertebrae is the most sensitive tool for the study of IUGR.