A commentary on 'The association between perceived emotional support, maternal mood, salivary cortisone, and the ratio between the two compounds in response to stress in second trimester pregnant women'

摘要

With great interest I read the study by La Marca-Ghaemmaghami et al., recently published in your journal [1]. The authors showed in second-trimester pregnant women undergoing amniocentesis that perceived emotional support did not significantly correlate with psychological stress response (mood, calmness, wakefulness) nor with salivary cortisol (SalF) or salivary cortisone (SalE) response to stress. However, a moderately strong positive association was found between perceived emotional support and the SalE/(E + F) ratio, which may indicate elevated conversion hi cortisol to SalE by 11 (J-hydroxysteroid dihydrogenase type 2 (llp-HSD2).