STUDY OF PREGNANCY AND NEONATAL HEALTH (SPAN) SPECIMEN REPOSITORY

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The timing of delivery (i.e., gestational age) and birth size are important neonatal outcomes for future health, affecting a range of conditions from mental disorders to cardiovascular disease. Research into the Developmental Onset of Health and Disease (DOHaD) evolved upon recognizing that birth size reflects fetal growth. Hence, attention has been paid to the timing of prenatal assaults as well as the type of assault for the resulting birth size, timing of delivery and their intersection (i.e., size for gestational age). More recently, DOHaD and complementary genetic approaches offer opportunities to understand environmental and genetic mechanisms that underpin key pathways important for health and disease. examine critical data gaps motivated by DOHaD, including the father's role, placental determinants, and timing of delivery in relation to neonatal health and development. The SPAN study encompasses three major aims: Aim 1: To determine whether paternal cardiovascular risk factors are associated with fetal growth, neonatal anthropometry, and placental function; and whether semen epigenetic differences explain any of these associations. Aim 2: To conduct a genome-wide association study to identify fetal genetic loci that influence fetal growth and birth anthropometry, and to determine fetal genetic loci associated with placental age acceleration and the functional link between associated genetic loci, placental gene expression and fetal growth in African Americans. Aim 3: To determine the optimal time for GDM complicated deliveries between 37-39 weeks where neonatal morbidity and perinatal mortality is the lowest SPAN will recruit 10,792 pregnant women, their neonates (10,253), and 3825 (~35%) of their male partners.