Prenatal stress feminizes and demasculinizes the behaviour of males

Ward IL

1972

USA

Subjecting pregnant rats to stress during the last third of pregnancy results in inverted sexual orientation of the male offspring.

One of the studies suggesting that there is in the perinatal period a phase of brain development which is critical for sexual orientation. It is likely that the maternal stress hormones antagonise fetal testosterone production. See entries 182 224,225, 226 and 227.