Intrauterine growth retardation: future research directions

The workshop highlighted several themes and pointed to major directions for clinical and experimental research. Prenatal therapy, if developed, would focus on those fetuses where the risk of fetal death was high at a gestational age incompatible with delivery-urgent research is needed to address the possible role of manipulation of the maternal and placental somatotropic axes. There is a need to increase our understanding of the mechanisms of how nutrition before conception and during pregnancy affects fetal and placental growth throughout development. Relatively simple nutritional manipulation during pregnancy may be an important public health strategy. Perhaps most interest was focused on the need to understand the nature of the links, identified by Professor Barker, between disorders of fetal growth and disease in adult life. The concept of disordered programming of critical axes during vulnerable periods of development attracted considerable interest. Further experimental and clinical studies are urgently needed.