Prenatal determinants of fetal programming in dairy cattle: A mini-review

Fetal programming in cattle is the result of the various maternal, paternal, and environmental determinants that influence prenatal development, affecting early postnatal life, adult life, and exerting possible transgenerational effects on the subsequent offspring. Prenatal environments establish long-term physiological trajectories through metabolic, endocrine, and epigenetic mechanisms, with consequences that may persist across generations. This review summarizes current knowledge about prenatal determinants that influence fetal programming in cattle and discusses economic implications. Maternal factors are the primary drivers of developmental programming. Maternal age, parity, level of milk production, nutrition, and health shape placental function, fetal growth, immunity, and reproductive capacity, and thereby creating trade-offs between offspring milk yield and fertility. Environmental heat stress (HS), particularly in late gestation, is among the most detrimental prenatal stressors, impairing growth, immunity, mammary development, fertility, and milk yield, with effects persisting across generations. Nutrient imbalance, metabolic stress, and gestational disease disrupt endocrine and epigenetic regulation, reducing growth efficiency, productivity, and longevity. Paternal factors, such as nutrition, age, and HS-induced epigenetic and transcriptomic changes in sperm, further modify embryonic development, often predisposing offspring to a metabolically conservative phenotype referred to as "economy mode." Understanding these prenatal determinants is central to improving productivity, reproductive efficiency, and long-term herd survivability.