Piccolipiù is an Italian birth cohort recently set up to investigate the effects of environmental exposures, parental conditions and social factors acting during pre-natal and early post-natal life on infant and child health and development.
Altered patterns of behaviour have been reported in children exposed to various pollutants during pre-natal and early post-natal development (Vreugdenhil et al., 2002; Lanphear et al., 2005; Korrick and Bellinger, 2007) and in lambs exposed to sewage sludge, via their dams (Erhard and Rhind, 2004).
It may be that the usual hydromyelic form of syringomyelia documented primarily in infants and children results from a progressive expansion of the central canal, and is not generally seen until term or early post natal life, and fetal syringes may expand in post natal life.
In agreement with previous data on rats and mice, Pgp expression in microvessels strongly increased from the early post natal age to the adult age [18], [46], [47].
In prenatal development, and very early post natal development in some species, muscle fibres grow by increase in fibre numbers (hyperplasia).
The similarities between CF humans and CF ferrets in their respiratory pathophysiology include defective chloride transport, submucosal gland fluid secretion, and a propensity towards lung infection in the early post natal period [ 6].
However in the early post natal period the gastrointestinal tract is still in a process of development and maturation which seem to be under the influence of milk ingested (Xu, 1996).
Such a potentially involved physiological system is the fetal hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, responsible for stress-regulation and particularly susceptible to programming or reprogramming during fetal or early post natal life [ 10- 13].
The total GC number increased 17-fold from birth to 22 post-natal weeks in marmosets; OCT4+ and VASA+ GC proliferated equally in late gestation and early post-natal life.
Rather, nephrogenesis is limited to gestation or early post-natal life.
