The cortisol awakening response is blunted in healthy women early postpartum
Høgh et al.
The finding, in our words
Healthy postpartum women exhibited a blunted cortisol awakening response and lower evening cortisol than non-perinatal controls when samples were self-collected at home. This suggests reduced CAR may reflect healthy adjustment to motherhood, demonstrating the feasibility of patient-centric saliva microsampling for perinatal mental health monitoring.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
This study used home self-collected saliva samples to successfully monitor cytokines and cortisol in mothers and infants, finding that a community singing intervention significantly reduced salivary interleukin-6 levels in mothers with postnatal depression.
At-home saliva sampling for cortisol was feasible over 12 days in two people with poststroke aphasia, with the cortisol awakening response remaining consistent across days and weeks.
This study found that salivary 11-dehydrodexamethasone correlates strongly with serum dexamethasone, unlike salivary dexamethasone which shows poor agreement. This validation suggests patients could self-collect saliva samples at home to verify dexamethasone absorption for the overnight suppression test.
This study validated a lateral flow fluorescence assay using quantum dots for saliva and europium nanoparticles for serum to detect cortisol within physiological ranges. The test operates in 15 minutes with a handheld reader, supporting point-of-care and at-home monitoring without a cold chain.
In a study of 46 perinatal nicotine users, dried blood spots and saliva were used weekly to measure reproductive hormones, finding that lower postpartum estradiol and greater peripartum declines in oxytocin were associated with increased nicotine craving and use. This demonstrates the feasibility of decentralised microsampling and remote surveys for longitudinal hormone tracking in vulnerable populations.