Maternal history of maltreatment interacts with DNA methylation patterns to predict infant temperament

These findings highlight the complexity of the relations among maternal CM, epigenetic modifications to the stress response, and infant temperament. Infants of mothers who experienced more CM, particularly abuse, exhibited more difficult temperament, a relation that was moderated by heightened methylation of HPA-axis-related CpG sites related to CM. This methylation pattern may reflect an elevated stress response that is altered by maternal CM, suggesting a fetal programming formulation that should be tested more explicitly and systematically in future research.