Prenatal Visits & Delivery

Timeframe/Frequency: Trimester 1, 2, 3

The below measures are done at each trimester visit. The visit lasts about 45-60 minutes.

• The study team will ask you questions about your health, lifestyle (including work, diet, exercise, and sleep), feelings, childhood, and pregnancy.
• You will provide a saliva sample. We will give you the containers, and instructions. You’ll be asked to store these in your fridge at home and bring them with you to your next visit. We will use this to measure hormones in your saliva. You will be compensated $15 each trimester when these samples are returned to us.
• You will be asked to provide a urine sample to be stored for testing environment chemicals and markers of stress and health.
• You will be asked to provide a blood sample, which we will try to collected at the same time you have a routine clinical care blood draw. It will be used to look at your immune system functioning, metabolism, and environmental chemicals and/or biomarkers of stress and health.
• You will be compensated $40 at each visit.

Trimester 2

• In your second trimester you will be called two times by a registered dietitian to do a brief interview about what you have eaten in the last 24 hours. This lasts about 15-20 minutes, and helps us understand how what you eat affects your baby’s health and development. You will be compensated an additional $15 for this.

Trimester 3

• As part of standard prenatal care, a practitioner will collect a vaginal swab to test for Group B Strep. At this time, we will ask them to collect an additional swab for the study to be stored to look at the healthy bacteria in your body.
• A study coordinator will swab the inside of your cheek to collect cells, which will be used to examine which genes are turned on/off and how they are similar to, or different from, other people in the study.
• You will be asked to complete a brief task involving moving shapes around in your head. We do this to examine how your hormones during pregnancy affect your ability to problem-solve.

Birth Visit

When you arrive at the hospital to deliver your baby, a nurse will collect blood as part of routine care. We will ask that an additional tube of blood be collected for us to look at how your immune system is working during pregnancy. We may also use this to study environmental chemicals, and/or biomarkers of stress and health.

After your baby is born our team will arrive to collect the placenta, which is normally thrown out. We will store some pieces of it to look at whether the DNA that makes hormones is turned on or off. We will collect blood from the cord and placenta and will use it to measure hormones. We will also look for signs of inflammation. We will take pictures of your placenta and measure the weight and size.

Before you check out of the hospital we will visit you and your baby to conduction a brief physical exam. This takes approximately 30 minutes. You will be compensated $50 for this visit. The exam includes:

• Weight, length, and head circumference measurements
• Skinfold thickness, which measures "baby fat"
• Measurements of your baby’s genitals, which tell us about the hormone environment inside of you
• Swabbing your baby’s rectum to learn about the healthy bacteria living in your baby’s body
• Swabbing the inside of your baby’s cheek to collect cells, which we can use to examine which genes are turned on and off and how your baby’s genes are similar to or different from other babies in the study
• We will ask you to answer a few brief questions about your infant
• We will collect information from your medical records related to the birth of your baby