Maternal adverse childhood experiences impact fetal adrenal volume in a sex-specific manner

Table 3 Pairwise comparisons at the first and second ultrasounds

Ultrasound	Group 1	Group 2	Estimate for group 1—group 2 (95% CI)	Z value	p value
Ultrasound 1	High ACE females	Low ACE females	0.09 (− 0.01, 0.19)	1.72	.086
Ultrasound 1	Low ACE males	Low ACE females	0.20 (0.10, 0.29)	4.10	< .001
Ultrasound 1	High ACE males	Low ACE females	0.03 (− 0.06, 0.11)	0.57	.570
Ultrasound 1	High ACE females	Low ACE males	− 0.11 (− 0.21, − 0.01)	− 2.16	.031
Ultrasound 1	High ACE males	Low ACE males	− 0.17 (− 0.26, − 0.08)	− 3.75	< .001
Ultrasound 1	High ACE males	High ACE females	− 0.06 (− 0.16, 0.03)	− 1.29	.196
Ultrasound 2	High ACE females	Low ACE females	0.06 (− 0.04, 0.15)	1.12	.262
Ultrasound 2	Low ACE males	Low ACE females	0.09 (0.00, 0.19)	1.92	.055
Ultrasound 2	High ACE males	Low ACE females	0.02 (− 0.07, 0.11)	0.44	.662
Ultrasound 2	High ACE females	Low ACE males	− 0.04 (− 0.14, 0.07)	− 0.73	.467
Ultrasound 2	High ACE males	Low ACE males	− 0.08 (− 0.17, 0.02)	− 1.58	.114
Ultrasound 2	High ACE males	High ACE females	− 0.04 (− 0.13, 0.06)	− 0.78	.437

Maternal adverse childhood experiences (ACE) group and offspring sex pairwise comparisons on fetal body weight-adjusted fetal adrenal volume (_waFAV). At the first ultrasound, males of mothers from the low ACE group had a larger _waFAV than the other three subgroups. No significant pairwise comparisons emerged at the second ultrasound although males of mothers from the low ACE group had marginally larger _waFAV than males of mothers from the high ACE group and females of mothers from the low ACE group. Tests with significant p-values are bolded

ISSN: 2042-6410