This second edition offers an expanded and updated history of the field of fetal and neonatal development, allowing readers to gain a comprehensive understanding of the biological aspects that contribute to the wellbeing or pathophysiology of newborns. In this concluding opus of a long and prominent career as a clinical scientist, Dr. Longo has invited new contributions from noted colleagues with expertise in various fields to provide a historical perspective on the impact of how modern concepts emerged in the field of fetal physiology and contributed to the current attention paid to the fetal origins of diseases in adults. In addition to new chapters on maternal physiology and complications during pregnancy, others trace the history of the Society for Reproductive Investigation, governmental funding of perinatal research, and major initiatives to support training in the new discipline of maternal fetal medicine, including the Reproductive Scientist Development program. The extensive survey provided by the author, who personally knew most of the pioneers in the field, offers a unique guide for all clinical and basic scientists interested in the history of - and future approaches to diagnosing and treating - pathologies that represent the leading causes of neonatal mortality and, far too often, life-long morbidity.

This second edition offers an expanded and updated history of the field of fetal and neonatal development, allowing readers to gain a comprehensive understanding of the biological aspects that contribute to the wellbeing or pathophysiology of newborns. In this concluding opus of a long and prominent career as a clinical scientist, Dr. Longo has invited new contributions from noted colleagues with expertise in various fields to provide a historical perspective on the impact of how modern concepts emerged in the field of fetal physiology and contributed to the current attention paid to the fetal origins of diseases in adults. In addition to new chapters on maternal physiology and complications during pregnancy, others trace the history of the Society for Reproductive Investigation, governmental funding of perinatal research, and major initiatives to support training in the new discipline of maternal fetal medicine, including the Reproductive Scientist Development program. The extensive survey provided by the author, who personally knew most of the pioneers in the field, offers a unique guide for all clinical and basic scientists interested in the history of - and future approaches to diagnosing and treating - pathologies that represent the leading causes of neonatal mortality and, far too often, life-long morbidity.

One of the most provocative recent findings in modern medicine is that perinatal stress may have a subtle or drastic impact on tissue/organ ontogeny, structure, and function, altering the vulnerability or resiliency to challenges and diseases later in life. A wealth of evidence indicates that stress and adverse environmental milieu during early development is closely associated with increased risks of the genesis of hypertension, coronary artery disease, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, central obesity, hyperlipidemia, and other neurobehavioral, neuropsychological and neuropsychiatric disorders in adulthood. The concept of "Developmental Programming of Health and Disease" or "Foetal Origins of Adult Disease" has been developed to elucidate the links between stress, early development, and risks of disease later in life. Stress is an internal response to stimuli or pressures that challenge or disrupt an organism's homeostasis in a changing environment. Adverse environmental signals that influence the development cause foetal stress. Such adverse signals can be transmitted from the mother to the foetus, impacting specific vulnerable tissues in their sensitive developmental stage, modulating normal development trajectory, remodelling their structure and function and reprogramming the resiliency or susceptibility to diseases in postnatal life. Such programming may be determined by multiple factors including gestational age, duration and mode of exposure and nature of the stressor, and these processes are tissue/organ specific. Genetic traits, epigenetic modifications and central stress mediators such as dopamine, glucocorticoids, and other transmitters may underpin such phenotypic plasticity. This volume provides broad and up-to-date information in the recent advancement of our knowledge in the basic science of Developmental Programming of Health and Disease. Each Chapter is written by leading experts in the field, providing the highest academic level for readers including basic, clinical, and translational scientists, paediatricians, maternal-foetal medicine specialists, physiologists, environmental biologists, biostatisticians, sociologists, behavioural scientists, health economists, health informatics experts, geneticists, microbiologists, epidemiologists, medical students, university undergraduate students, and graduate students.