Environmental and Genetic Impact on Fetal Development

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There are many factors that affect development. Some of those are factor, which have a direct bearing on prenatal life, later on manifest postnatal. The human body is a highly organized system with trillion of cells communicating with each other to ensure proper functioning. However those functions, can be enhance or impaired by endogenous or exogenous agent, which act in concert to produce effects during prenatal life. These effects might have consequences on emotional and cognitive development of a child postnatal. Deena Palenchar (2005) stated that there are environmental agents, which can adversely affect the prenatal development. These agents are known as teratogen. When exposed to these environmental agents, genetic materials interact with them producing effects that can have direct bearing o the rearing of the child. On the other hand, there is stress. Stress is a normal occurrence in everyone’s life, and it management depends on each individual (Sleigh, 2005). Just like teratogen, stress can affect the fetus development with mild or serious consequences during childhood and adulthood. Both teratogen in this case smoking and stress can adversely affect the fetus by producing Nicotinic Acetylcholine receptors and cortisol respectively, which have a great impact on the prenatal and postnatal development.

Proteins are building the human body. They trigger chemical reactions throughout the body (Berk, 2010). They are produced within the cell, and they carry genetic materials, which are easily modified by environmental factors. With the technological advances in genetic, studies has been conducted to determine the effects of smoking on prenatal life. It was found nicotine exposure acts directly on the developing nervous system through activation of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, and its premature release could affect the replication and differentiation of neurons (Wiebe, Espy, Stopp, Respass, Stewart, Jameson & Huggenvik, 2009). Additionally Nicotine interferes ability to absorb certain nutrients because of constricted blood vessel. This also restricts the amount of oxygen flow to the fetus, and disrupts sleep pattern and REM sleep (Sleigh, 2005). Researchers have found that REM sleep is vital for the growth of central nervous system (Berk, 2010). However in their studies, the authors of Gene-environment interactions across development argued that genetic studies should not just consider prenatal risk factors of smoking, but also postnatal environmental factors including parenting and postnatal tobacco exposure, which can determine the capacity to regulate cognition and emotion (Wiebe, Espy, Stopp, Respass, Stewart, Jameson & Huggenvik, 2009).

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