Pregnancy and the origins of illness

Citing psychiatrist and neuroscientist Rachel Yehuda's studies of Holocaust survivors and their children, Richardson introduces the burgeoning field of developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD) and its use of epigenetics—analyses of heritable changes that affect gene expression but not DNA sequence—as a means to measure and characterise the impact of the gestational environment. First is the problem of crypticity— a term Richardson helpfully uses to describe the tenuousness of the links between cause and effect that characterise maternal effects science. [...]the challenges of crypticity are not redressed by epigenetic technologies—even, as she argues in a robust chapter-long critique of the emerging science, among the boldest new research programmes. The second concern is that these assumptions contribute to a “drastically limited”, according to Richardson, picture of influences on development since much DOHaD research does not adequately consider paternal, postnatal, and other social and environmental factors that may influence the long-term health of offspring.