Fetal programming/Definition

Refers to adaptations made by a fetus in response to adverse or beneficial intrauterine environments, adaptations targeting the fetus’s survival, adaptations that affect fetal structure and function during the highly plastic period of embryonic/fetal development, adaptations that persist after birth and that influence the structural, metabolic and physiological characteristics of the individual throughout life, which system characteristics can predispose the individual in later life to maladaptations in response to environmental conditions differing from those to which the fetus had adapted.