Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Meta-Analysis
. 2020 Sep 1;98(9):skaa294.
doi: 10.1093/jas/skaa294.

Fetal programming in sheep: effects on pre- and postnatal development in lambs

Everton D Sartori  1 , Amir G Sessim  1 , Danielle D Brutti  1 , Jusecléia F Lopes  1 , Concepta M McManus  2 , Júlio O J Barcellos  1
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Fetal programming in sheep: effects on pre- and postnatal development in lambs

Everton D Sartori et al. J Anim Sci. .

Abstract

This systematic review and meta-analysis aim to summarize the effects of maternal undernutrition or overnutrition during pregnancy on fetal weight and morphometric measurements during pregnancy, at birth, and postnatal period in sheep. After completing the search, selection, and data extraction steps, the measure of effect was generated by the individual comparison of each indicator with the average of the control and treated group (undernutrition or overnutrition) using the DerSimonian and Laird method for random effects. Subgroup analyses were also performed for lambing order, litter size, sex, as well as level, timing, and duration of the intervention. Fetal weight during the first third of pregnancy was not affected by maternal undernutrition or overnutrition. On the other hand, undernutrition in the second and last third of gestation reduces the weight of the lamb both during pregnancy, at birth, and during the postnatal period, requiring at least 120 postnatal days to achieve the same weight as its contemporaries in the control treatment. However, this reduction in weight is not accompanied by reductions in morphometric measurements, demonstrating that the animals were lighter, but of equal size. In overnutrition, there is an increase in fetal weight in the second third of gestation. However, in the last third of the gestational period, there are no differences in fetal weight for the multiparous subgroup, but it was reduced in primiparous ewes. There are no effects of overnutrition on birth weight; however, this result is highly heterogeneous. Thus, maternal nutrition of ewe during pregnancy has effects on fetal and postnatal weight, but not on size. Furthermore, the effects of undernutrition are more homogeneous while overnutrition showed heterogeneous responses.

Keywords: development programming; growth; maternal nutrition; meta-analysis; systematic review.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Flow of information through the different phases of systematic review with the number of articles included and excluded in each level. MA = meta-analysis; n = number of identified articles; k = number of trials identified. Adapted from PRISMA guidelines (Moher et al., 2009).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Alexander G, and Bell A W. . 1975. Maximum thermogenic response to cold in relation to the proportion of brown adipose tissue and skeletal muscle in the body and to other parameters in young lambs. Biol. Neonate - Foetal Neonatal Res. 26:182–194. doi: 10.1159/000240729 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Allen W R, Wilsher S, Turnbull C, Stewart F, Ousey J, Rossdale P D, and Fowden A L. . 2002. Influence of maternal size on placental, fetal and postnatal growth in the horse. I. Development in utero. Reproduction 123:445–453. doi: 10.1530/rep.0.1230445 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Begg C B, and Mazumdar M. . 1994. Operating characteristics of a rank correlation test for publication bias. Biometrics 50:1088–1101. doi: 10.2307/2533446 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bell A W, and Greenwood P L. . 2016. Prenatal origins of postnatal variation in growth, development and productivity of ruminants. Anim. Prod. Sci. 56:1217–1232. doi: 10.1071/AN15408 - DOI
    1. Borenstein M, Hedges L V, Higgins J P T, and Rothstein H R. . 2009. Introduction to meta-analysis. John Wiley & Sons, Ltda., The Atrium, United Kingdom.